


Nearly All That is Undetected

by NyxEtoile



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Slow Romance, Super Soldier Serum, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:22:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile
Summary: The first time the Soldier met the Doctor he had a bullet in his thigh and her face was bloody.





	1. Rusted

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> I've been toying with the idea of Amanda-As-Villain since the first time Bucky told her she'd make a good one. Finally, it has come to fruition. I'm awful proud of this one, folks.
> 
> If you're new to my work, Amanda is an OC from the Tales From the Tower series I write with a partner. If you like this, you might like that.
> 
> Title is from a quote from Sherlock Holmes, regarding Professor Moriarty. The working title of this fic was "Moriarty" and I based some of Villain!Amanda's methods on him. At least, him from the books. Chapter titles are Bucky's trigger words from Civil War.
> 
> This first chapter contains some canon-appropriate violence. For some reason it's a little queasier in written form.

The first time the Soldier met the Doctor he had a bullet in his thigh and her face was bloody.

He’d been in the mountains, shooting a scientist. There’d been an enemy agent protecting him. He’d had to shoot through her to get the target, but not before she’d gotten a few rounds off. His thigh had burned the whole way back to base. The bullet needed to be removed before his body could heal.

So they brought him the Doctor. He’d had many doctors over the years, but she was the first woman. He didn’t see many women, other than the occasional target. More in recent years. And now two in one day.

She didn’t seem happy to be there. She had three guards and they yanked her around roughly when bringing her over. He met her gaze a moment and there was fury and defiance in her eyes. She examined his leg when they ordered her to and demanded equipment to take the bullet out.

They moved to a new room and she cut away his uniform pants and gave him a shot in the thigh muscle, numbing out the dull throb of pain. No one had taken pain away in so long it caused a flicker of panic, wondering if she’d done something to paralyze him. Then she bent over his leg and started cutting an incision to remove the bullet.

The Soldier watched her with detached curiosity. She fished the bullet out quickly, dropping it onto a tray with a metallic clank. Then she irrigated the wound with water and started to stitch it up.

Her guards lingered around, looking bored and vaguely nauseous. Men who would shoot someone without a second thought couldn’t handle the simplest of surgeries. While she was still stitching one of the guards wandered off, clearly deciding she wasn’t worth this much trouble.

The Doctor cut the last stitch, set her needle and tweezers onto her tray, picked up her scalpel and drove it into the throat of the guard closest to her.

He let out a choking gurgle, falling with a spray of blood. The other guard called out for help, running towards them. The Doctor turned and slashed out at him with her scalpel, catching him in the gun hand. He shouted again, this time for the Soldier to help him, but his leg was still numb and when he tried to stand his leg wouldn’t hold him. The Doctor stepped closer and stabbed the second guard in the gut, turning and yanking, slicing his stomach open.

The guard dropped to the hard, concrete floor and the Doctor turned to the Soldier, scalpel still clutched in her bloody hand. If she came close enough to use it, he’d kill her. Though it seemed odd for her to go to all the trouble of stitching him up only to try to kill him now.

They never had to find out, as their stand off was interrupted by the door bursting open and guards flooding in. The Doctor whirled to face them, lashing out with her scalpel again. Two went at her at once, catching her arms and slamming her back into the wall. The scalpel hit the ground with a soft clatter. A third guard - the one who had been there before and left - stepped forward and put a gun to her head.

“Don’t kill her,” said a voice from the doorway. The Soldier’s shoulder’s hunched at the sound of the commander, but he didn’t look that way, still watching the guards and the Doctor.

“She killed two of my men,” the one with the gun growled.

“You killed them by underestimating her,” the commander replied. “Her brain is worth twenty of your men. Don’t. Kill her.”

Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. The guard slowly pulled the gun away from her forehead and leaned away, tucking it back in its holster. There was the scrape of boot on floor as the commander left.

The two guards holding the Doctor to the wall started to shift, but the third stopped them. He pulled his combat knife out of its sheath and brought it up to her face. The Soldier couldn’t see her expression, but she didn’t appear to flinch. Even when the guard dug the blade into her cheek and flicked it up.

The guards dropped her, bleeding and gasping in pain. The knife wielder cleaned it off on the Doctor’s lab coat and sheathed it again. “Bring him,” he ordered the others, gesturing to the Soldier.

“What about her,” one asked, stepped to catch the Soldier’s arm.

“She’s so smart, I’m sure she can take care of herself.”

Guards flanked the Soldier, helping him walk. He looked over his shoulder at the Doctor. She had both hands covering her cheek, blood dripping between her fingers. She wasn’t crying, or screaming, just panting, like a wounded animal. Just before they pulled him fully out of the room, she turned her head, meeting his gaze. 

He didn’t know what she saw in his eyes. But the fury and defiance were still in hers, along with pain and shock. They brought him to the cryo chamber after that and then there was nothing.

The next time he woke up she was there, monitoring his vitals. She was still in her white lab coat and now sported a scarred cheek and eyepatch. Before they put him in the chair to wipe him, he felt a slight flicker of surprise that she wasn’t dead.

He saw her again after his mission, though he wasn't uninjured. She puttered about him with the rest of the white coats, taking blood and running tests. He was tired; the mission had lasted three days and he hadn’t really slept in that time. He was hungry, too, but he didn’t know know if this was one of those times when he was allowed food or not. Food too close to cryo wasn’t allowed.

Then the Doctor handed him a sandwich. It was a mixed blessing because it meant they weren’t done with him. But it had been a long time since he’d had proper food and he’d missed it. There was something about actually chewing and swallowing that made him feel a little human.

They were alone in a lab room, surrounded by guards. He wondered, as he chewed, how long it had been since the last time and how many of those armed men were for him and how many were for her.

Other lab coats came in, all men. One of them said, “He’s not allowed food before going into the vat.”

“He’s not going in for another couple hours,” the Doctor said. “I was promised time to work on him.”

It was the first time he’d paid attention to her voice. It was deep and soft and had the faint accent of the American south. The tone suggested she didn’t think much of the man she was talking to.

“You could have just given him a protein shake. Or an IV. Feeding him is a bad idea.” The man’s voice was slightly nasal, as if his nose was stuffed up. It had been winter outside, maybe he had a cold. His tone indicated he thought he was very smart.

The Doctor looked at the Soldier, then back to the labcoat. “He seems to be enjoying his sandwich.”

The lab coat snorted. “The Soldier doesn’t enjoy anything. There’s nothing in there.”

He went over to another work station and started inputting data. The Doctor watched him a moment, then looked back at the Soldier and rolled her eye.

It surprised him enough to smile, which he hid in biting his sandwich.

Her tests on him went into the night, which meant he got to sleep naturally - a novelty - and didn’t go back into cryo till the morning. She took more blood, some skin cells. She tested how fast he could run and how much he could lift. He broke two force meters before she got a good reading. 

Very late that night, then they were alone save for two dozing guards, he sat on an exam table drinking a protein shake and watching her enter data into a computer. “Why?”

She jumped a foot, catching the edge of her desk to keep from falling out of her chair entirely. She turned to stare at him and took a moment to answer. “Why what?”

“Why the tests?”

Blinking rapidly, she looked at her computer. “They want me to make more of you. I’ve been researching the serum that made you how you are. They think I can replicate it.”

There were more like him, locked up somewhere. They hadn't gone well. But that was many years and several commanders ago. Maybe they’d forgotten. “Are you going to?”

She sighed deeply, running her fingertips along the edge of the desk. “Probably. I have my whole life and very high end equipment. I’ll figure it out eventually.”

“You could run,” he offered, gesturing to the sleeping guards. He wouldn’t stop her. No one had ordered _him_ to guard her. They thought he was a thing. A weapon to be pointed at enemies. He didn’t feel the need to correct them.

“I wouldn’t make it to the stairwell. Just because they’re asleep doesn’t mean the rest of the base is.”

“You tried once.”

Her hand lifted and touched her scar. “I wasn’t trying to escape. I thought they’d kill me. For killing them.” She dropped her hand and started typing again. “I’m worth more alive. But there’s a lot I can survive. Apparently.”

He didn’t ask anymore questions. A little while later, she told him he could sleep, so he did. He woke up being rolled into the cryo room. She wasn’t there.

The next time he woke up, more time had passed. He was somewhere else, Russia based on the conversations that filtered through the cryo fog. It was cold and the walls and floor were grey cement and undecorated.

The Doctor was there. Her hair was different, longer and pulled back in a braid. Her scar was flat and pale. They shocked him and dressed him and gave him his mission orders and told him he would be leaving in an hour.

He sat and waited, surrounded by guards and lab coats. The Doctor had left during the mission briefing. When she returned she had a tray of food, which she put down next to him. Pierogi and soup and coffee. Real food. A meal. He hadn’t had a meal in years.

“What the hell are you doing?” one of the lab coats asked her in Russian.

“New theory,” she replied, also, surprisingly, in Russian. “I want to gauge changes in his performance with food rather than IV supplied nutrients.”

“What difference does it make?” He was taller than her, bigger and stronger than the rest of the lab coats. Clearly he thought he was alpha in the room and didn’t appreciate her giving orders.

The Doctor turned to look at him. “If I have to explain how the body reacts differently to real food versus an IV then maybe you need to go back to medical school.”

He snarled something and took a threatening step towards her. She held her ground and one of the guards off to her left cleared his throat, halting the lab coat in his tracks. He backed off, but the tension in the room didn’t go down an inch.

The Soldier munched his food, enjoying every bite. His handlers came to start the mission before he’d finished and didn’t complain when he brought the last pierogi and coffee with him.

The mission went well. In and out. No civilians, no witnesses. His handlers were in a pretty good moods as they headed back into base, joking and laughing with each other. They didn’t include him in the chatter, of course, but the lightness of their moods was encouraging. Happy handlers meant no punishments. It was apparently dinner time, as they stopped at a drive through on the way back to the base. One of the guards ordered an extra burger and fries and handed it to the Soldier, to the surprise of the other men. He just shrugged. “The doctor told me to feed him if he behaved well on the mission. She’s doing some experiment.” This got a round of nodding and shrugs from the others. No one took the food away.

The Doctor and the other lab coats were waiting for them when they got to base. She looked rather delighted to see him eating the burger, even more so when she heard the mission report from his handers.

He sat on the exam table and ate his fries, listening to her talk to the guards and make notes. The big lab coat who’d been rude to her earlier sat near him, jaw clenched.

She walked over to start her tests. “Good day,” she commented in Russian. He assumed she was talking to him, since the next closest person was Rude Labcoat and he didn’t seem the idle chatter type.

“Your accent is terrible,” the Soldier told her, holding his fry bag out for her to share the way he’d seen the handlers do for each other.

The room went quiet. He was sure most of them hadn’t heard him speak, other then brief orders in the field. Nothing personal. Nothing conversational.

Ignoring, or perhaps ignorant of, the others, the Doctor reached into the bag and took a couple of fries. “You should hear my French.”

She chewed her fries as she hooked up a blood pressure cuff and other monitors. He ate his burger and watched her, idly curious, as she took notes and readied a syringe to take a blood draw.

One of the men who’d been on mission with him, a young, bare-faced recruit the Soldier didn’t recognize, snorted and said under his breath, “ _Soldat imeyet shlyukhu_.”

_The soldier has a whore._

The Doctor’s hands stilled on her equipment. The man might had muttered it, but clearly she’d been meant to hear. He watched her face, the way her expression changed from anger to embarrassment to some more complicated emotion he couldn’t put a name to. She seemed to have decided to just let the taunt pass when Rude Labcoat took up the thread.

“They make a pretty couple don’t they?” he said out loud. No more whispering, no more muttering. “The monster and the freak.”

“Oh, but which is which?” the guard replied, laughing.

The Doctor was still pretending to ignore them, which seemed to egg them on even more. Some bullies weren’t happy until they got a reaction. Someone had told him that, a very long time ago. The memory sent a chill through him, raising goosebumps on his arms.

“Maybe we let him have fun with her before he goes back in the ice,” the lab coat said, leering at the Doctor. “Probably hasn’t had a proper fuck in decades.”

The Doctor’s shoulders hunched. He wanted to reassure her he wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t hurt her. But even as he thought it he realized her couldn’t promise it. They’d made him do all kinds of awful things. How could he promise there was a line he wouldn’t cross?

“Oh, he’s been a good boy,” the young guard said. “We could get him a prettier whore.”

Rude Labcoat waved a hand. “I’m sure her legs spread the same. Don’t they, _vrach_?” He spit out the Russian word for doctor like it was an insult, all nasty vee and guttural ‘ch.’ He reached out and poked her, hard enough she flinched. “Can’t be picky looking the way you do.”

She curled her fingers around her pen, turned and drove it into Rude Labcoat’s ear. He shrieked in pain, scrabbling at the pen as he backed away from her. He kept shrieking like an injured animal and the Soldier saw the Doctor smile.

The guards seemed frozen, stunned. The young one who’d been joining in the bullying moved first, yanking his baton out of his belt as he came towards the Doctor. She hunched up, bracing for the blow. The baton came down, headed for her back.

And struck the Solider’s metal arm with a dull thud.

The room froze again. The Doctor turned at the sound, apparently surprised at not being struck. The young guard was staring at the Solider in shock. The Soldier wondered if they were now both going to get a beating. Still, he didn’t move, arm protecting the Doctor.

“Well,” one of the older guards said, the one that had ordered the Soldier his own meal. “The scarred doctor has a guard dog.” The other guards chuckled a little.

The Soldier had noticed, over the years, that there were different kinds of guards. Some, like this young one, delighted in their power over others. They were eager for a fight, eager to see some blood. For others, this was just a job. They took no joy in the killing, but no guilt either. That type tended to treat him with more respect. He was just another coworker. As long as he did his job well and didn’t get them killed, they didn’t care what the management said he was.

“Stand down,” the older guard said to the one with the baton.

“But she-“

“He was an ass and provoked her. Get him to medical if you’re so concerned but stand the fuck down.” When the young guard didn’t move, he added, “Unless you think you can take the Soldier in a fight.”

Very deliberately, the Solider let his arm slide along the baton, the metal making an unpleasant scraping sound. The guard yanked the baton away and put it back in his belt before leaning down and helping the injured lab coat to his feet and hauling him out of the room.

The older guard waited until they were gone before saying, with a smirk, “Nice shot, doctor.”

The rest of them went back to their food and talk and the Soldier eased himself back on the exam table and fished in his fry bag for the last few.

“Thank you, _soldat,_ she said quietly as she started prepping him for a blood draw.

He glanced down at her, then gave a little nod.

*

The next time he woke up she wasn’t there.

No one he recognized was there. It was a new team and the mission was hurried and messy. Things went sideways, two of his handlers were shot. The rest of them dragged their asses back to base to get yelled at and, in his case, beaten.

He didn’t even think it was a punishment so much as a way for the other men to release some of their aggressions. He even tried to fight back a bit, but it went against every bit of programming he had and made them fight harder. Loosing consciousness was a blessing.

He woke to hands touching his face. Instinct had him reaching out, wrapping his metal hand around a fragile throat. A moment later he recognized a scarred face and patched eye. “ _Vrach_ ,” he rasped out, releasing her throat and sinking back to the hard, cold floor.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m here. I’m sorry I wasn’t here before.”

She had a little medical kit and dug out some gauze to clean at the wounds on his face. He stayed still even when it stung and pulled at the half healed bruises.

“How long-“ His voice caught, throat rough and raw. She handed him a bottle of water and he sucked down half of it before trying again. “How long have you been with them?”

“Almost seven years,” she told him quietly. She was patching up a split in his eyebrow with bright white butterfly bandages. 

He remembered the first time they met, when she had fought her guards. He had seen her kill and maim men. If she had been with Hydra unwillingly at first then she had adapted well to the harsh realities of it. And yet she showed him kindness. Cared for his wounds. Talked to him like a person.

“They will break you someday,” he told her.

She lifted his hand to spread something clear and oily on his abraded knuckles. “I know.” She lifted her head and met his eyes. “But I might break them first.”

He leaned his head on her shoulder as she tended the rest of his wounds, Eventually he fell asleep.


	2. Daybreak

The Soldier saved the Man on the Bridge.

He didn’t have to. He could have let him sink. But he _knew_ him. He’d called him by a name and put down his shield. Whoever the Soldier had been before he’d been the Soldier the Man on the Bridge knew him. And maybe someday he’d be able to tell him about it.

So he dragged him to the edge of the river and waited for him to breathe before going on his way. There were panicked crowds and law enforcement arriving, but he kept a steady pace walking away from the crash site and no one stopped him.

He went back to base, like he did after every mission. He didn’t know if there was anyone there to give him orders. He didn’t think there was any Hydra anymore. But the base is where he was supposed to go and at this point he had no idea what else to do.

The base was in the basement vault of an old bank that was now an office building. The entrance he was supposed to use was in an alley, hidden from the average pedestrian. Hydra had long been experts in hiding in plain sight.

The Doctor was waiting outside the door, a duffle bag at her feet and a black burner phone in her hand. There were no guards, no labcoats. She wasn’t wearing her lab coat either, in a black tank top and tactical pants that looked too big for her. She smiled when she saw him. “I hoped you’d come back here.”

“ _Vrach_.” He was happy to see her. Maybe she’d tell him about the Man on the Bridge. Maybe she knew who he was.

“I wouldn’t go in there,” she said, hooking a thumb back at the building. “In all the chaos there seems to have been some sort of toxic gas leak. Bodies everywhere. Awful thing.”

He wasn’t a master of vocal inflection. But even he knew her rather cheerful tone didn’t match up the information she was giving him. “You?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her tone was hard now, her smile cruel. “Me.” She bent and picked up the duffle bag and a little black plastic carrying case he hadn’t noticed before. “Shall we go?”

“Where are we going?” It wasn’t an order. She never gave him orders. But she seemed willing to lead him and for now that was something he needed. But he thought, maybe, she’d answer his questions. 

“For now, I think out of the city is a good idea. Find a hotel, plan next steps.” She paused and looked at him. “You don’t have to come with me, if you don’t want to. The commander is dead. The men who were your handlers are dead. There’s only just you and me left, but if you want to be alone, I won’t keep you.”

Having a choice was both incredible and horrifying. He shook his head sharply and fell into step with her.

He had more experience in being on the run than she did. He stole a car for them, but she drove, fighting traffic to get them out of DC and into Maryland. He stole license plates when they changed states and they checked into a hotel.

She reset his dislocated shoulder and shoved him into the bathroom to shower and change into fresh clothes. She didn’t ask what happened on the carriers and he didn’t offer up any information. For two days they stayed in the hotel room more or less in silence. The Doctor read files she’d stolen from he base, filling out a map of the East Coast she’s bought at a gas station. She reminded him to eat and drink and sleep but otherwise left him to his own thoughts.

His head was crowded and confused. Memories drowned him. He didn’t know which ones were real. Maybe they were all real. Maybe none of them were.

On the third day, he said, “The Man on the Bridge,” and she stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. He swallowed hard and forced himself to add, “I knew him.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “You did. Before you were the Soldier he was your best friend. His name is Steve Rogers.”

Steve. He turned the name over in his head. Steve Rogers. _Stevie_ , a childish voice in the back of his head called.

“He called me Bucky.”

“That was your name,” the Doctor told him. “Before you were the Soldier.”

He had known, on some unnamable gut-level, that he’d been someone before he was the Soldier. He had not been born a weapon of Hydra. He knew something had been done to him, that made him stronger and faster and able to survive things normal men couldn’t. But whoever that man had been was so distant to him now he didn’t know if it was worth trying to find him.

“Who was Bucky?” He regretted it as soon as he said it. He didn’t need to know. He shouldn’t ask for things he didn’t need to know.

She stood, moving slowly and smoothly, as if not to startle him. He hunched up anyway, ready to be reprimanded. “Do you want to go for a trip?” she asked him gently.

Confused, he nodded, because arguing with her didn’t even occur to him.

She put him in a bulky coat and a baseball cap and lead him out of the room. Two nights ago he’d ditched the car so no one would come looking for it, so they walked to the bus station, then took Metro into the city.

They went to a museum. It was crowded and loud and he spent the first few minutes checking for exits and weapons of opportunity. Then she lead him to a display in the back and he came face to face with himself.

_Barnes’ marksmanship was invaluable as Rogers and his team destroyed Hydra bases and disrupted Nazi troop movements throughout the European Theater._

He went through the whole Captain America exhibit. Sat through the documentary twice just to see himself laughing and smiling next to Steve. The Doctor followed behind him, a silent shadow. He didn’t say a word and neither did she. When he’d seen everything - when he could all but recite the displays by heart - he left, head so full it hurt.

The Doctor got him back to the hotel and put food in front of him. He ate by rote, because she wanted him to not for any real hunger. When he slept, he dreamed of a dirty city with tall buildings and a frail blonde boy with skinned knees and a fat lip.

When he woke up the sun was shining and the other bed was empty. The Doctor usually left in the morning to get them breakfast. So he tried to ignore the vague irrational fear that she had abandoned him. Even if she had. . . he’d manage. He could feed himself. He could find a place to hide. He had skills-

The door opened with a rattle and a thunk and the Doctor stepped inside, carrying white plastic bags full of takeout boxes. She gave him a little reassuring smile. “You were restless all night, I didn’t want to wake you.”

He nodded, moving to join her at the little table she used for work. She had cleared it off to set up the food. He started opening containers, then stopped when he saw one of the bags didn’t contain food.

Noticing his regard, she held it out to him. “I got you a few things.”

Hesitantly, he took the bag and peered inside. There was a package of black pens and two spiral bound notebooks. He looked back at her questioningly.

“You seemed a little overwhelmed after the museum,” she offered. “I thought maybe writing down whatever was going on in your head might help you sort it out.

He looked back at the bag. Maybe if he wrote it out he could identify what was real. Chase vague memories to the finish. Piece together a profile of the man he’d been. “Thank you, _vrach_ ,” he said.

She nodded. “May I still call you _soldat_?”

His name was Bucky, or so the Man on the Bridge had said. But he was also the Soldier. She had never known Bucky, just as he had never known who she’d been before she was the Doctor. And when she said the word it didn’t sound harsh or cruel. It wasn’t used to give orders. It was who he was to her and she, at least, didn’t think it was a bad thing. So he nodded and said, “Yes.”

It made her smile and she gestured at the food she’d brought. “Eat.”

*

Two days later, she moved them. Her research had turned up a number of Hydra safe houses that hadn’t been used in years. The odds of anyone knowing about them, or law enforcement investigating them was small, and they couldn’t afford to live in the hotel.

There had been fake IDs in the bag she’d taken from the Hydra base, as well as credit cards and cash. The Doctor used one to rent a car that they drove north.

The safe house was an abandoned, run-down brownstone in New York. The bustle of the city made him nervous. but the Doctor assured him that a crowded city was the best place to hide. She was less excited about the safe house itself, though.

“Nothing a little cleaning and sunlight won’t fix,” she said, flinching away from a distinctly rodent-shaped shadow slinking along the wall.

He inspected the crooked bannister and broken risers on the stairs. “I can fix this,” he said, sounding surprised to his own ears.

She looked over at him, brows arched. “Well then. Let’s get you some tools.”

That night, laying on a pallet made of drop cloths and a sleeping bag, he wrote in his notebook, _Bucky Barnes knew how to fix things._

The next few weeks were like none the Soldier had experienced before. They cleaned and fixed the house from top to bottom. He could have lived in just about any conditions. But the Doctor insisted she’d slept on her last dirty floor. She scrubbed with scalding water and bleach and he fixed broken stairs and windows and doors. She caught or chased out the rats and he followed behind, closing up their holes. He learned how modern plumbing worked and how to replace the fuses in the fuse box. She dug into their cash and bought a fridge and appliances and he discovered his hands remembered how to cook even if he sometimes added too much salt or mixed up paprika and cayenne.

He wrote a great deal in those weeks. _Bucky Barnes knew how to hang a door. Bucky Barnes had opinions on wood. Bucky Barnes smoked on the fire escape so Steve wouldn’t cough. Bucky Barnes dressed well. Bucky Barnes likes mashed potatoes._

“Do you realize you’ve been using present tense lately?”

The Doctor read his notes sometimes. He’d told her she could. Sometimes she asked him questions and answering them triggered more memories. And sometimes she pointed out things he hadn’t noticed.

She was eating an apple and flipping through his current book as he tried to remember how to make a meatloaf. She’d spent the day in her office. Now that the worst of the cleaning and repairs were done, she had gotten back to going over the Hydra paperwork while he occupied himself in other ways.

She had seemed different the last few days. Cheerful, almost. There was no reason that should worry him, but it did, somehow. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Her brow arched. “Snacking until you concede defeat and let me order take-out.”

“No. In your den. With the paperwork. The map.” He had been busy rebuilding his memory and learning to live in a world with no wipes and no orders. But the Soldier was observant and Bucky Barnes was intuitive. Between them, he knew when something was up.

The question clearly surprised her. She chewed thoughtfully a moment, buying herself time, then said, “I’m figuring out how to destroy Hydra.”

He frowned. “Hydra is destroyed. The helicarriers. The data dump.”

“Cut off one head and two more shall rise,” she said, mockingly. “Rogers and his team struck a blow. But it was like setting off a bug bomb in the middle of an infestation. A lot of roaches ran and hid. I’m sure the governments of the world have ferreting them out on their to-do lists somewhere. But I was there was almost a decade, watching how they worked and learning their secrets. I found this place.” She gestured vaguely at the ceiling and walls. “I’ve earmarked several other bases that I suspect are still operational, hidden beneath layers and layers of shell companies and covers. I don’t intend to let any of them get away with what they did.”

“ _Vrach_ ,” he said quietly. “You are not a hunter.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Not all hunters need to bloody their teeth. I’m smarter than them and they will never see me coming. I think that will be enough.”

He stifled a sigh, cooking forgotten. “When do we start?”

“I’ve already started. A building in queens was raided by the CIA two nights ago. They found Hydra agents working on experimental weaponry.” She took another bite of apple. “They didn’t find the basement vault. I’m going tonight to get what they missed. But, _soldat_ , you don’t have to be part of this. I will welcome your help, if you’re offering, but I would never have asked. It’s your choice what you do with your life.”

Choice. For so long he’d had none and now she presented them at every opportunity. Blue shirt or red shirt. Grilled cheese or turkey sandwich. Soda or water, coffee or tea. It had taken him a while to realize what she was doing, giving him small decisions to make to prepare him for more important choices.

He had no burning desire to go kill Hydra agents. He hated them for what had been does to him, but he was already bogged down with memories of a distant past. He had to let something go.

But she wasn’t a soldier. She was ruthless and brilliant and could kill when given the chance. That didn’t mean she was capable of this sort of operation. And, for the moment, she was the only person in the world who felt safe and real in a world that was still occasionally overwhelming. When he wasn’t up for the market or found himself frozen trying to order a meal _vrach_ was there to help him. To smooth over his rough edges. Losing her wasn’t something he could cope with right now.

So he went with her. Throughout the summer and fall they hunted.

It wasn’t like hunting as the Soldier. _Vrach_ was far more methodical and careful than Hydra ever was. She tried negotiations before gunfire, occasionally involving law enforcement to do her dirty work for her. Best as he could tell she wasn’t trying to run the organization but destroy it. It meant she didn’t care who she offended or angered. If she had her way, they’d all be dead or imprisoned by the time she was done.

Not to say there wasn’t fighting and shooting. When talking and anonymous tips and cleverness failed he was there with fists and guns. Keeping her safe. Her guard dog, as the guard had said many years ago. He was good at it, as he had always been.

It wasn’t all bad. It brought up memories of fighting in the war, at Steve’s side. As the weather got colder he thought of him more often and his notes mentioned him more and more, until he had to give Steve his own notebook. He’d been sick, when they were young. He’d read that in the museum and his memories backed it up. One the street one chilly day in November he heard someone cough and it sent unnamed panic through his veins. He’d filled up two pages of notes that evening.

“It really is a miracle he survived,” _vrach_ commented one night near Christmas. They’d just returned from raiding a weapons stash in Long Island and been surprised by a guard. Bucky had been hit in the shoulder and she’d had to finish the job for him. They’d gotten what they came for, but it had been ugly and he was already feeling unsettled by the weather and the thoughts it had brought up.

“Every winter he was sick.” They were in her den, where he rarely ventured. But she’d insisted on stitching up his shoulder and that’s where her supplies were. It was also where they tended to stash the things they’d liberated from Hydra.

“If I’m remembering history class correctly, he was born premature.” He could feel her breath as she leaned over his back, carefully stitching. “That weakens the lungs. And given the available medicine at the time, especially to a poor Irish kid from Brooklyn. . . “ He could see her shrug out of the corner of his eye. “He’d have been on some serious cough medicine. Did he ever let you try it? You’d have gotten high.”

 _Vrach_ was always willing to talk about whatever was on his mind. And liked to ask him questions to force him to follow memory threads. “Not that I recall. Too precious to waste.”

“Pity, it’s much harder to get opium now. And it might actually still get you high.”

He snorted a laugh and she grinned, snipping off her last stitch. “I made you laugh, I can die happy.”

He watched her snap off the gloves she’d been wearing and start packing up her equipment. This room had a fireplace hooked to the only functional chimney and near as he could tell she had a blaze going whenever she was there. He liked the warmth, though cold didn’t bother him. Nothing much bothered him. She seemed to hate the cold, though, and bundled herself up whenever she left the house.

She tucked her medical kit into a cupboard. Inside was also the hard plastic case she’d brought from the Hydra base. He had never seen her open it, nor had she moved it since tucking it away in that cupboard.

“What’s in that?” he asked. She had never lied to him or refused to answer a question. For someone who had been unable to question anything for so long, it was a novel experience.

Glancing back at him briefly, she slid the box out of its spot and brought it over, opening it for him. It was full of a dozen small vials and a handful of syringes, still in their sterile packaging. The vials were unlabeled, yet somehow he knew exactly what they were.

“You made serum.”

“I did,” she admitted, studying the collection with something like affection. Like a mother looking at her children. “Never gave them any of it. Claimed it didn’t work.”

He studied her face. “Does it?”

“I never tried it on anything living, but. . .” She lifted a shoulder and met his gaze. “I think so.”

Something like panic fluttered in his chest as he watched her close the box back up and tuck it away again. “Why did you keep them?”

“I took them so they wouldn’t have them. I know I should destroy it.” She straightened and half turned back to him, looking into the fire. “Someday I will. But these little vials are the product of a lot of years of pain. In some ways, they’re my life’s work. It’s. . . hard to just toss them away.”

It made sense. He had no life’s work, but he could understand the feeling of futility. Of losing your purpose. Hydra had been trying to replicate the serum for decades, killing to get samples of it. And in a few years she’d managed it, all while being held hostage and tortured. It was something good to come out of the horror. He wouldn’t want to toss that away either.

She looked younger and softer in the firelight. Almost pretty. He remembered thinking girls were pretty. He had hazy, dream like memories of dating and dancing with them. He didn’t think most people would call her pretty, with her scars and eye patch. But he knew who she was. Had been to hell and back with her. The scar was the last thing he looked at.

“I don’t want to kill people anymore,” he said quietly, surprising himself.

She seemed surprised as well, turning fully to look at him. For a moment they just studied each other and he braced himself for her to say no. To tell him he had to keep doing it, had to do what he was made to do.

But instead she nodded and smiled. “Then you shouldn’t do it.” She tossed another stick onto the fire and went to sit in a chair next to his. “Do you mind if I keep doing what I have been?”

He shook his head, still processing her easy agreement. “I know it’s important to you.”

“Thank you.” She ran a thumbnail along the wood arm of the chair. “To be honest, I’ve been running out of steam, myself. Revenge is a hobby with a limited lifespan. It’s probably healthier to let it go. Move on with our lives.”

“Thinking about what to do with my life is intimidating.” Something about the crackling fire and comfortable chairs made the conversation seem intimate, safe. “I can’t hide here. But I don’t know what else to do.”

She seemed to consider the question a moment. “You like working with your hands. Fixing things around here. Maybe you could find a contractor to work with.”

“Who would hire a man with no past, no ID?”

“Well.” The one word was thoughtful and almost ominous. “We can probably do something about the ID. There’s money left. And I have made some less than savory contacts in the darker parts of the city. Getting us both some paper work should be doable. At least enough to get a simple blue collar job.”

It would require being around people. But maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. If he didn’t want to be a cut-off hermit, then he needed to make effort. And whatever else was still scrambled in his head, he did know how to use a saw or swing a hammer. “I’d like to try that,” he said hesitantly, then something occurred to him. “What about you? Could you be a doctor again?”

Grief made her brow crease and the lines around her mouth deepen. “No. Not without far more documentation than I can muddle together illegally. License, letters of reference. Proof I’ve gone to medical school. That’s all dust now.”

“What will you do, then?”

She shrugged. “I’ll think of something, I suppose. Wait table, stock shelves. Something to fill my days.”

He didn’t like the idea of her being a waitress or store clerk, though he couldn't articulate, even to himself, why. It brought up feelings of frustration and anger, maybe guilt. Old, vaguely familiar feelings he didn’t have the energy to chase right then.

“Would that make you happy?”

“Eating would make me happy,” she said with a wry little laugh. “You do what you need to survive. We both know that.”

That philosophy had gotten them this far, he supposed. Warm and relatively safe with a roof over their heads and food in the kitchen. It wasn’t perfect, but he wouldn’t have trusted perfect. After cryo and electroshock and beatings perfect would have felt false and dangerous. This was good. It was enough.


	3. Furnace

They found work when and how they could. There wasn’t a lot of building jobs in the dead of winter, but there was almost always people willing to slip him cash to move heavy things around or stand and look dangerous. He didn’t know what _vrach_ found to do. Probably things similar to his. He watched her smooth, clever doctor’s hands turn rough and chapped and felt an odd pang. Buried deep in him was the desire - the certainty - that he was supposed to take care of her. Of someone. That was integral to who he was as a person. And he was failing.

 _Bucky Barnes wanted to get married,_ he wrote in his notebook and stared at it a while.

Christmas passed, then the new year. They toasted it with boxed wine that tasted like paint thinner smelled and left over Christmas candy he’d found on sale. He had a sense, vague and undefined, that they couldn’t go on like this, scraping by, squatting in an old safe house. No roots, no ties but each other. _Vrach_ was bored and restless and he was starting to look over his shoulder for an enemy he didn’t know was real or not.

He told himself it was the weather. He told himself it was the ancient memories New York stirred in him. He told himself it was the ghosts of Hydra’s abuse digging their claws into him and ruining his peace. And maybe it was true, in part. But some of it, he suspected, was a finally honed instinct for danger.

A bitterly cold January had turned into a bleak, grey February when he came home from another day of hard labor to a cold, empty house.

It was unusual, even rare for him to beat her home. She didn’t like walking alone in the dark, though she was more capable of defending herself than most. He had given her a knife for Christmas, given in lieu of payment from one of his employers. She’d smiled in delight at the gift and to his knowledge had it on her whenever she left the house.

So he tried not to worry, going about warming the house and cobbling together dinner. When she still hadn’t arrived he pulled out his notebooks and flipped through them, hoping to distract himself and find something new to write.

Hours later he was ready to go out and hunt for her, despite having no idea where she would be or even which direction to start looking. He was the god-damned Winter Soldier, he should be able to find one woman he knew well, even in a city the size of New York.

The door opened, letting in a rush of cold wind and snow. He went running to meet her and found her staggering, a smear of blood on the doorknob.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” she gasped out as he caught her. Tugging her coat open he found the front of her shirt sticky and black with blood.

It took precious seconds for it all to sink in. The part of him that had been quietly expecting something like this was finally still, the rest of him was a swirl of panic and dread. “What happened? Who did this?”

“The man - the man who cut my face.”

He jerked his gaze to her face. He had assumed it had been a random attack. “You said you were done. No more revenge.”

She laughed a little, thin and breathy, with blood on her lips. “I didn’t seek him out. I saw him, on the street. He recognized me. He ran, I pursued. We fought.”

Rage filled him, burning hot, the strongest emotion he’d felt in ages. “Where is he now?”

“Dead, in an alley.” She pressed a hand to her wound. “The cold helped, I think. Slowed the bleeding.”

There was so much blood. He wasn’t a doctor, but he had a good idea of how much blood came from a killing blow. God knew how much she’d left back in the alley, if she was covered in this much. “I’ll get you to the hospital.”

She shook her head. “I won’t make it.” He voice was gentle, reassuring. “It’s all right, _soldat_. I didn’t expect to make it this far. But I knew you’d worry.” She took a break that was ragged and pained. “There’s money, from the Hydra raids, in my den. Use it, go somewhere else. Start your life.”

“Can’t, I can’t-“ Not alone. Not without the steady rock she’d been in his recovery. Not without someone who knew who he was, knew the Soldier in the man and the man in the Solider.

“You can,” she told him, as sure of him as he was of her. “You can.”

She was fading. Her lips had lost their color and her skin was even cooler than usual. Thinking only that he should warm her - though given what she’d said about the cold slowing the bleeding maybe that was wrong - he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to her den.

He had spent more and more time in there with her, in front of her fire. They read, sometimes he wrote. Often she played music and he lost himself in it. It was a room of comfort and safety, it seemed the best place to take her.

By the time he set her down on the rug in front of the fireplace she was unconscious. He rocked on his heels and looked at her, feeling desperation choke him. He didn’t know how to do this alone. Wasn’t ready. She believed he could and maybe it was true. He could do as he had been. Or maybe he could find Steve, show him his notebooks and ask for help. But Steve knew only Bucky, would probably expect to get him back. And whoever he was now, Soldier or man, he was not the one Steve had known. Anymore than Steve was the skinny, sickly boy that featured in so many of his faded memories.

The thought of old Steve, the Steve before the serum and the war, had him staring at a particular cabinet on the wall a few feet away. An idea had begun to form. A mad, desperate idea. But he was desperate and perhaps more than a little mad.

 _Bucky Barnes took care of people._ It had been his job to take care of her and he’d failed. But there was, perhaps, a way to make up for that.

Half walking, half crawling, he went to the cabinet and pulled out the little black box full of vials and needles. He stared down into it, briefly second guessing himself. He didn’t really remember getting the serum. It was lost in a blend of torture and pointless questions, tied to a table in a warehouse far from home. Steve said it had hurt, but only briefly.

 _Vrach_ was dying and this was the only chance he had to save her. So he pulled out a vial and syringe and went back to her.  
He wasn’t a doctor. He didn’t know anything about the serum or how it worked. Whether to put it in a vein on in the muscle. When Hydra had given him shots there had been no tourniquets or hunting for veins. He hoped it worked the same here.

Filling the syringe he tapped out any bubbles and turned to her. Her coat had half fallen off, so he yanked it the rest of the way and pulled up her sleeve before driving the needle into the muscle of her upper arm. The entire contents went in, then he pulled it out, a dark bead of blood appearing at the injection site.

There was no miracle, no sudden spasm and her eyes opening. She was just as cool and pale as she had been ten seconds ago.

Feeling rather disgusted with himself, he threw the syringe away, hearing it strike the opposite wall with a crack.

For hours he sat, watching for any sign of life. He thought a few times he saw her breathe, but couldn’t bring himself to reach out and check. When the fire dimmed he stoked it. She hated to be cold.

The sun was lightening the sky, sending thin grey light through the rooms windows, when he finally forced himself to move. He wouldn’t work today, but he needed to eat. He needed to plan. He would have to bury her somewhere. Clean the blood they’d streaked through the house. He would have to decide where to go and what to do with himself now that he was alone.

The kitchen had the remains of the dinner he’d tried to make the night before sitting in the sink and the sight of it caused him to bundle into his coat and walk down the block to the bagel shop to get his breakfast among the rush of early morning commuters. It felt safe and anonymous, being lost in the crowd for a little while.

The house felt different when he got back, tense, expectant. He took his time eating his breakfast and drinking strong coffee. Then, trying to bury the parts of himself that was sad and lonely and grieving, he went back to the den.

There was no body in front of the dying fire, only a blood stained coat and a ruined rug.

Something cold and primal traced down his spine. In the back of his head there were a dozen barely remembered ghost stories, told in childish whispers, about things that died and came back wrong because someone meddled in the normal order of things.

Ignoring the dread in his stomach, he stepped out of the room and looked around, spotting a smear of red on the wall by the stairs. He moved slowly, silently, up the stairs and down the hall to the room she slept in. He had never been in that room, both of them too private to tolerate such an invasion. But now the door hung wide open, shiny brass handle dull with finger prints and drying blood. As he crossed the threshold there was the faint sound of water splashing that startled him far more than it should have.

He followed it to the adjoining bathroom and found her standing there, blood soaked shirt in a crumpled mess at her feet. She wore her jeans and a bra, both stained dark with her own blood. The sink was full of rust colored water and she was wiping her abdomen with a similarly colored washcloth. Where there had been at least three stab wounds there was now only smooth bare skin.

She looked different. He had never seen her shirtless, but she had worn tank tops in the summer. Then she had been thin, with little muscle tone. Now she looked strong and fit, with defined muscles in her shoulders and arms. It wasn’t the way Steve had grown, nothing so dramatic. She was leanly muscled, like a dancer. Deadly in a different way.

In the mirror, she met his gaze and for a moment neither of them spoke. She knew what he had done while he was only just realizing the full implications. He had thought only to save her life, but he had made another super soldier.

“I would have hoped it would heal the eye,” she said finally, gesturing at the patch she still wore. “But I suppose the wound is too old.”

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I just didn’t want you to die.”

“I know. It’s all right.” She tossed the wash cloth into the sink and turned to look at him, moving with a refined grace she hadn’t had a day ago. “Thank you,” she told him sincerely. “For saving my life. And proving my life’s work was a success.”

He found him smiling a little. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t crazy. No red skull. Whatever else happened, they could figure it out.

For a while, everything was as it had been. He worked what jobs he could and so did she. As the weather started to warm he was able to get regular work with a construction company that was willing to hand him a check every other week when he said he didn’t trust banks. When he told _vrach_ that story she laughed and called him an old man. He spent the rest of the week teasing her with cliched old-man complaints to make her laugh more.

Maybe it was the change of seasons, but she seemed happier as the days passed. He watched her carefully, especially at first, worried about unknown side effects of the serum. Who knew when the red skull actually kicked in? But he saw nothing. She was the woman he had always known. Smart and capable and steady.

He supposed, in retrospect, there were signs here and there. She started to dress nicer than one would when going out for manual labor. More money was clearly coming in and his regular pay couldn’t account for all of it. In April, she got him a cell phone, a proper Stark phone with apps and all manner of bells and whistles rather than the knock-off burners they’d used previously.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her where it had come from. She had always been honest with him, answered every question he’d ever asked her. And maybe that was why he didn’t ask. Because, even then, he knew he might not like the answer.

Then, two weeks later, he walked into her den to find her on a Stark phone of her own, arguing with someone in Mandarin.

To the best of his knowledge, she didn’t speak Mandarin, only English and Russian. And her Russian had significant gaps in it. He didn’t think she’d ever even been to Asia.

When she saw him she looked guilty, turning away to finish her conversation. His Mandarin was rusty - Eastern European languages had been his forte - but he picked up enough to know she was discussing a land purchase and building permitting, which made no sense at all.

He waited until she’d finished her call and placed the phone gently on the desk before saying, voice hoarse, “ _Vrach_ , what have you done?”

Her fingernails tapped the smooth wood of the desk. She’d grown them long, but left them unpolished. “Abraham Erskine, the man who invented the first serum and worked on Steve, once wrote that the serum only enhanced what was already there. Good becomes great, bad becomes worse. Steve Rogers versus Johan Schmidt.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I was a good person or a bad person. I think I was something in between. Doctors have to be neutral. You can’t save the saints and let the sinners die. You have to save them all and accept you don’t control who you lose.”

She finally turned to look at him. “Good or bad, I have always been very smart. Since I got the serum. . . I see the world in a different way. There’s patterns everywhere, connecting seemingly unrelated things. The core of chaos theory, a butterfly flaps its wings in New Mexico and China’s hit with a tsunami. And once you see the patterns, it’s a small step to giving them a little nudge to make them work in your favor.”

It felt a bit like a puzzle piece clicking into place. He’d spent so long looking for side effects and it had been right in front of him the whole time. “Like Hydra used to?”

A smiled flashed across her face. “Not really. I’ve no desire to rule the world or shape it in my image. Nor do I have moles in governments around the world. The key is to keep it small. Subtle. And to spread the wealth around so as not to raise red flags.”

“So you’re selling your new talent?”

“Yes.” Her calm tone was starting to grate on his nerves.

He clenched and unclenched his fists. “Are you killing people?” He didn’t know why it mattered. It was hypocritical as hell, given his past. But he’d thought he put it behind him and it was important to know if that was true or not.

“I do what I can to avoid it,” she replied, which wasn’t really a no. “There are lots of ways to take someone out of an equation without a mysterious death. Can I promise you no one has died due to my meddling? No, unfortunately not. But I swear to you I haven’t killed anyone, or ordered anyone killed.”

He believed her. Maybe he shouldn’t, but he had very little in the world he was sure of and her honesty was at the top of the list. It left him with no idea where to go from here. He was glad she wasn’t killing people. He was even glad she’d found something to do with herself that wasn’t manual labor. Using her mind had certainly seemed to have improved her mood. But despite what she’d said, it all seemed to close to Hydra’s machinations for his comfort level.

In the end, what came out of his mouth was, “If the serum enhances what was already there then what am I?”

She tilted her head, face softening. “I think you were a very loyal friend that was twisted into an obedient soldier. And you’ve spent the better part of a year trying to untwist and figure out who you really are.” She smiled. “And I’ve really enjoyed seeing that man emerge.”

Something inside him unknotted a little. He still wasn’t entirely happy with what she was doing, but she was still his Doctor. She had always had a ruthless streak. Hell, he had admired that about her. How could he judge her for this if she had never judged him for the things he had done.

She was clearly waiting for some sort of response, some sort of judgement. He had none for her other than to request, “Try not to hurt anyone.”

After a pause, she replied, “Can I maybe hurt bad people?”

That was probably a slippery slope. Being the person who decided between good and bad, superhumanly brilliant or not, was a recipe for disaster. He didn’t think he’d be able to get any more out of her and the conversation was already starting to exhaust him, so he just nodded and turned to leave her to her machinations.

“ _Soldat_?” she said just before he left. He turned slightly to look at her. “Loyalty is a rare gift. If the time comes you decide I’m not worthy of it anymore, I won’t stop you.”

Over the next few weeks he wrestled with his feelings. He didn’t think he was a good man. He didn’t even know if he’d been a good man before the war and all that was done to him. Certainly, he’d never been as good as Steve was. In the war he’d killed, both with Steve and with his unit. It had been war and he’d been on the right side of it. But the men he’d killed hadn’t been Hitler or Mengle. They’d been guys, like him, from whatever the German equivalent of Brooklyn, hoping to go home the same as him. For every true-believer Nazi there’d been someone drafted into the army whose family would have been killed or starved if he didn’t go.

And then there were all the people he’d killed as the Soldier. He remembered them, most of them at least, though they were just blurred faces in the fog of his memory. He didn’t know who they were or what they had done to make Hydra want them dead. Maybe some of them had been legitimately terrible people. Most had probably just been in Hydra’s way. All of them were dead because of him. Much as he might want to forget or move past that, he had to carry that weight.

In the end, that was what he had trouble with. How could he reconcile his own redemption with sitting back and letting her do whatever it was she was doing.

He was still turning all of this over in his head when the capital of Sokovia lifted into the air.

They stood side by side, watching shaking cell phone footage play on the news. He hunted for a glimpse of Steve and spotted him here and there, in his familiar, if more muted uniform. It looked bad and was probably worse in person. He imagined _vrach_ saw only opportunity. Political upheaval was probably very good for her business.

But when he looked at her he saw her hand pressed to her mouth and her eye bright with sorrow. He immediately felt guilty for thinking poorly of her. That was not the kind of person he wanted to be, who assumed the worst. He would never be Steve. But he didn’t have to be the cynical soldier either.

“I think I need to try being by myself,” he said two days later, watching her chop vegetables to put in an omelette.

Her knife paused, hovering over a slice of red pepper. He couldn’t see her face, but could read tension in every line of her body.

“You’ve helped me,” he told her, feeling the need to explain himself. “Supported me. I am grateful. But what you do. . . I don’t know if I’m okay with it. I want to find the man I am now. I can’t if I’m here.”

She nodded, finally. “I’ve been expecting it. For what it’s worth, I think you’re right.” She turned finally, a pleasantly neutral expression on her face. “What can I do to help you? Money? I still have Hydra money, if you don’t want to take mine.”

He wanted to say no. Just pack his things and walk out. But the Hydra money was as much his as hers and he would need it, no matter where he went. There was no sense in making this harder on himself. So he nodded. “Thank you.”

Her throat worked hard and for a moment the mask slipped and he saw pain and sorrow on her face before she gathered herself up again. “I never wanted to tie you down, _soldat_ , I only ever wanted you to be happy.”

And because she had always been honest with him, he believed her.

He left three days later, with a backpack full of his notebooks and a duffle bag full of clothes and cash. _Vrach_ saw him off at the train station. He wasn’t quite sure where he would end up, he thought he wanted to leave the States eventually, but for now getting out of New York would do.

“Be careful,” he told her, not sure what else to say.

“You, too. Watch your back.” She studied him a moment. “I’ll miss you, _soldat_.”

His throat tightened with emotion he didn’t have a name for. “I’ll miss you, too,” he rasped out. “But I need to-“

“I know,” she assured him. “It’s for the best.” Hesitantly, she reached out to touch his hand lightly. “I’ll be thinking of you, though. If you need me, I’ll help.”

He hoped he was never in such dire straights as to need her kind of help. But having powerful friends was never a bad idea. He wasn’t exactly the luckiest guy in the world.

“Goodbye, _vrach_ ,” he said firmly. He needed to do this. He needed to find his own way, much as he might regret leaving her behind.

She nodded, looking sad and proud at the same time. Then she turned and walked away, getting lost in the crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Olive's birthday. She doesn't get comment notifications on this story 'cause she's not a co-author, but feel free to wish her a happy birthday in the comments of one of our other fics, or on Tumblr.


	4. Freight Car

_One Year Later_

One had a lot of time, when strapped to a metal chair inside a big metal cage, to think about where one had gone wrong in life.

Of course, when one’s life was as long as Bucky’s, it was hard to know where to start.

Steve had meant well, coming to find him. And probably Bucky would be dead if he hadn’t been there. If not by the garrison of special police then by the weird guy in the cat costume. So for that, Bucky was grateful. He wasn’t quite ready to die, even if he had more or less made peace with the inevitability. Not that being in this box in a basement accused of a crime he didn’t commit was much of an improvement.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. All the crimes he had committed and he was going away for the one he hadn’t.

They’d sent him a shrink, which would have been kind of laughable in any other circumstances. The guy was spindly and harmless-looking, which already made Bucky wary. When he started calling him James, he confirmed himself as a bit of a douche.

“My name is Bucky,” he said finally, when he couldn’t listen to the word anymore. No one had called him James in a century. He wasn’t that man anymore, hadn’t been even before he’d been the Soldier. This guy didn’t get to dig up that particular grave on their first meeting.

He switched to Bucky without comment, but that didn’t make him any more likely to share. 

If they were smart, they’d have sent Steve. Seeing him again had shaken him, more than he’d like to admit. The raid on his apartment had almost been a relief. Nothing like a good violent distraction to avoid talking about feelings.

Fighting at Steve’s side again had felt almost terrifyingly comfortable, though.

He was getting annoyed at the shrink again when the power suddenly went out, flooding the room in darkness, then hellish red light.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, looking around.

The other man’s demeanor changed immediately. No longer was he harmless and weak. Now he had purpose, a specific goal. Then he pulled out the Book.

That damned red book had haunted his dreams in the days after Hydra fell. Bucky remembered it well, his handlers had loved to show it off to him, so he’d know what was coming. The panic, the pain, the fading of his personality to be replaced by the cold obedience of the Soldier.

The man - he sure as shit wasn’t some helpful shrink - started saying the words and Bucky immediately started to fight his bonds. “Stop. _Stop!_ ”

There were a lot of words, each one hit him like a blow. But he had time. Even as he ripped his metal arm out of its bonds he tried to reassure himself that he had time to fight this. He started to pound on the door of his cage as the man with the Book stalked around him, to the parts of the room he couldn’t see.

“ _Benign_ ,” he said from somewhere to his left. He was almost done and the door wasn’t breaking, wasn’t opening. He was going to say the last of the words and then-

Over the sound of his punching and the pounding of his heart he heard a sharp crack and the familiar, unmistakeable sound of a body hitting the ground.

Bucky’s fist froze, pulled back over his shoulder, ready to strike another blow. But the words had stopped. There was a moment of silence in the room, with only Bucky’s rough breathing to break it. Then there was a quiet tap of footsteps on the metal floor and an entirely different figure appeared in his sightline.

“Hello, _soldat_ ,” the Doctor said with a little smile. “Still with me?”

“ _Vrach_ ,” he rasped out, relief flooding him.

It had been a year, almost exactly, since they’d said goodbye. She looked as he’d remembered. Lean and graceful, in a crisp black pantsuit and bright red high heels that sounded like gun shots as she came around to stand in front of him. The Book was tucked under her arm.

She studied the door of his cage, looking thoughtful. “Let’s get you out of there, shall we?” Stepping closer, she slid an arm through some of the metalwork on the outside of the door and shifted her stance to brace herself. “Push, please.”

He flattened both hands on the door and shoved with all his might. He saw her muscles bunch under the fabric of her suit jacket. Metal squealed and plastic shattered and the door separated from the rest of the box. 

_Vrach_ let it drop to the side as he stepped out, free, to a certain degree. “What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding far less grateful than he’d intended to.

Showing no offense, she arched a brow. “I do read the news, _soldat_. I knew the UN explosion wasn’t you.”

“How?” Steve didn’t really seem certain he hadn’t done it.

“Bombs aren’t your style, for one thing. For another, I knew you hadn’t gotten into killing for hire, because I’d have heard about it. And you were adamant enough about _me_ not killing people I was fairly certain you hadn’t started doing it for fun.”

He glanced at the doors. “There were a lot of guards. . .”

“You’ll find there’s very few rooms in the world I can’t get into if I want to.” She glanced at her watch. “We have about two minutes before Captain Rogers crashes in to save the day. I’d prefer not to be held and questioned by the JTT so-“ She looked up at him. “Coming with me or staying here?”

He hadn’t expected her to offer. He’d accepted the fact he was caught and would need to deal with the consequences. Part of him was relieved. Being on his own had been good for him, he’d learned a lot about himself and the man he was now. But there was only so long you could look over your shoulder before you grew tired. And he was, at times, very tired.

Before he could make a decision, there was a bang at the door that made them both jump.

“Huh,” _vrach_ said, looking at her watch again. “He’s early.”

Sure enough, the metal door peeled back to reveal Steve and his friend that had been wearing the wings. He’d heard someone call him Sam. The two men stepped cautiously into the room. Bucky could see Steve carefully taking in the situation before meeting his gaze. “Buck?”

“I’m all right,” he said, since that was almost certainly Steve’s top priority.

Steve nodded slowly, then looked at _vrach_ and the unconscious man on the floor, before going back to Bucky. “What’s going on?”

That was a question too broad and complicated for him to wrap his head around, so he looked over at _vrach_ for help.

She sighed softly, clearly wishing she’d made a break for it sooner. But she stepped to the side so Steve could get a better look at the man on the floor. “This is Helmut Zemo. He’s a member of Sokovian special forces. Or, rather, was. Not much left of Sokovia anymore.”

Steve frowned deeply and Bucky gave her a pleading look.

Lifting a shoulder in a little shrug, she continued, “As best I’ve been able to discover, his family was killed in the incident last year. He appears to have been planning a rather elaborate scheme to avenge them. No pun intended.” Steve grit his teeth, but Bucky decided to let her get away with that one. “He set up the bomb at the UN, intercepted the psychiatrist that was meant to evaluate _soldat_ , and shipped an EMP to a local power station to turn the lights off.”

“What did he want?” Bucky asked, studying the man he’d never met but had tried so hard to use him as a pawn.

“Information on one of your missions. December, 1991.”

The date meant nothing to him, but Steve straightened, enough of a reaction to get everyone’s attention. _Vrach_ smiled slowly. “Ah, I see someone knows the secret.”

“Who are you?” Steve ground out.

“A friend,” she replied, holding his gaze.

“I don’t know you.”

“Didn’t say I was your friend, _kapitan_.”

“Steve,” he said quietly. He waited for him to look over before adding, “Let her go.”

Sam held a hand up. “Wait a minute. We’re just taking her word for this? Looks to me like she came to break out her boyfriend and knocked out the shrink in the process.”

He was still trying to decide if he should be offended at the implication when _vrach_ reached into her suit pocket, making everyone else tense. All she pulled out was a phone, on which the tapped a few things. Then she tucked it back into her pocket. “All of my information - including documentation - has been sent to you, Tony Stark, and every member of the JTTF. I’m hoping at least one of them will be capable of verifying it.”

Sam still looked skeptical, but Steve relaxed fractionally. Probably because he wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe that Bucky could be exonerated with the swipe of a finger.

There was the sound of running feet in the distance. Apparently Steve’s head start had run out. _Vrach_ looked at her watch again. “I believe it’s about to get very crowded in here. _Soldat_? Stay or go?”

He looked at her a long moment, then over at Steve, who looked a bit like a kicked dog at the idea of Bucky leaving again. He didn’t want to stay and put himself at the mercy of these smug men in suits. But he was also tired. And maybe it was time to stop running. “I’m sorry, _vrach_.”

She nodded, as if that’s what she had expected. “Until next time, then.” Sam moved to stand in her way as she took a step towards the door.

Bucky watched her posture shift, as if she was readying for a fight. If she fought Sam, Steve would step in. Then Bucky would have to step in and this fragile peace between them would shatter. In a desperate hope of stopping violence before it could start he said softly, “Steve. Please.”

Steve stared him down a moment, studying him like he’d never seen him before. Or, perhaps, like he was looking for something particular in his face. After that moment he sighed and lowered his head. “Let her go, Sam.”

Looking incredibly unhappy about it, the man moved aside so she could pass.

“ _Vrach_ ,” Bucky called after her, waiting until she stopped to add, “The Book.”

She looked down at the thin red book tucked under her arm, then back at him. “If this gets into the wrong hands it will be very bad for you.”

True. It was probably safer with her. But. “What’s in there could help me. It shows what they did to me.”

The footsteps were getting closer, but he watched her hesitate. Watched her turn it over in her head, chase all the possible answers and outcomes. Then she held it out for him to take.

He didn’t want to touch it, but reached out for it anyway. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“A word of advice,” she said softly. “You have many secrets. Secrets are worth a lot to the right people.”

Before he could ask who on earth would be interested in his secrets, she turned away and strode out of the room. He held himself tense, waiting to hear her being arrested by the guards coming down the stairs. But there was nothing, and a few minutes later the room was full of armed men ordering him to raise his hands and get on his knees.

It was several days later before he really understood what she’d been hinting at. It took that long for the JTTF to get to the bottom of Zemo’s plans. _Vrach’s_ emails sent them to a hotel room with a dead psychiatrist and bomb parts in it. They included surveillance video showing Zemo attacking said pyschiatrist, and a list of names of hotel employees who had dealt with him directly. Zemo refused to talk, clearly furious at being thwarted before completing his plans. It didn’t really matter, because it was enough to get Bucky off the hook for the UN bombing. Steve seemed to know what secret he was hoping to show the world, though he didn’t tell Bucky what it was. He did have an ugly conversation with Tony Stark that had caused the other man to abruptly leave Vienna.

Bucky was still the infamous Winter Soldier, of course, but with the red book and some rather graphic leaked Hydra files (also attached to the mysterious emails) made it very clear he hadn’t been in control of those actions.

They stuck him in a hotel in Vienna with Steve while they decided what to do with him. And it was then, finally, that he understood what _vrach_ had been trying to tell him.

“You want an immunity deal?” Sharon asked him, brows arched.

He didn’t know how she’d arranged a position as his liaison. He would have thought whatever was going on with her and Steve would have been a conflict of interest. Of course, if Steve had any say in it, maybe that had been the point. However it had worked out, he was grateful. He liked her. She was clever and competent and had a strict moral code that stirred old memories of a scrawny Steve with bloody knuckles and a fat lip, ending every fight he came across. 

“I know things,” Bucky told her. “Things that aren’t in the files. Missions I went on, conversations overheard. Your people don’t seem to want to try me for what I did, but letting me go won’t play well either. I tell whoever wants to know whatever I know and they give me immunity. They get ninety years of information, I get freedom and a new life.” It was exactly the sort of thing _vrach_ would arrange. 

Sharon blinked at him, then looked over at Steve. “Did you put him up to this?”

He shrugged and smiled. “Totally his idea.”

“Hmm.” She pursed her lips and studied them both. “I’ll float it past my bosses. Do you really think you remember that much?”

“I have ten notebooks just about the missions and victims I remember. I might not solve every unsolved murder in the world. But I bet I’ll answer some burning questions.”

“Well, it’ll give me some leverage to negotiate with, at any rate. I’ll come back with dinner, let you know how it goes.”

“Thanks, Sharon,” Steve said, standing to walk her to the door. Bucky stayed where he was so they could have a minute of privacy. Steve had improved with women from when they were kids, but still had his moments of awkward. Fortunately, Sharon seemed to find that adorable, but Bucky figured lack of audience could only help him.

They were gone long enough he pulled out one of his notebooks and wrote, _I hate being jealous and feeling like the third wheel._ He wasn’t sure when he started using first person in the notebooks. For the most part they were no longer collections of memory but proper journals. The world could still be overwhelming for him, especially recently, writing down his thoughts helped sort it all out.

Steve came back clearly trying to hide a goofy smile and Bucky politely ignore it.

“Secrets,” Steve said, sitting on the bed across from Bucky. “This is what she meant, isn’t it? Using your secrets to get you your freedom.”

“I think so,” he said, closing his journal and tucking it away. “It makes the most sense.”

After a pause, Steve asked, “Are you ready to tell me who that woman was?”

He’d managed to avoid talking about _vrach_ so far. However, Steve hadn’t asked a direct question about her yet and that seemed a little harder to dodge. “She’s a friend,” he said carefully.

“Was she Hydra?” Steve asked quietly.

“She was as Hydra as I was. They used her for her talents. When they fell we ran together. Took care of each other.” It felt like a very simplistic way of describing those chaotic early days, when he’d been drowning in confusing memories and trying to figure out how to live in a world both familiar and foreign to him.

Maybe that showed on his face, because Steve looked down briefly before asking, “You call her _vrach_. Sharon said that means ‘doctor.’”

“She was a doctor. She was my doctor. I never knew her real name.”

“You trust her?”

It should have been a hard question. He knew she did untrustworthy things. Steve wouldn’t trust her, if he knew the things Bucky knew. But if there was anything in the world he was sure of it was that she wouldn’t ever do anything the cause him harm. “I do.”

That seemed good enough for Steve. He just nodded and moved on to what they should eat for lunch.

He didn’t know what Sharon said to her superiors. Maybe they were as eager to make him go away as he was to move on. But they agreed to his plan with little fuss and almost no restrictions. He spent two months sitting in a conference room at the JTTF talking to representatives from intelligence agencies from all over the world. There were some he had very little information for. Others, he barely scratched the surface before their questioning time was over.

Sharon sat in on most of the meeting, sometimes taking notes, but mostly as his back up in case the rep on the other side of the table started trying for things that were outside the scope of his agreement. It felt very strange to have someone on his side in this sort of thing. But he was coming to realize that, thanks to Steve, the list of people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt was pretty long. Sam liked to remind him how he’d almost killed him a couple of times, but was also perfectly content to share a beer with him and Steve when invited. 

Neither of them had signed the Accords, which meant they were both officially retired. Bucky knew it grated on Steve, but Sam seemed to have embraced it entirely. He was staying in Vienna, in the same hotel as they were, and was actually doing touristy things. He’d even dragged Steve out to do some while Bucky was busy with his debriefings.

If nothing else, Bucky liked him because he somehow got Steve to unwind now and again.

The meetings began to taper off around mid summer. Steve and Sam started muttering about going back home and Bucky assumed that meant he would, too. He hadn’t been to the United States since he left Brooklyn a year ago, and wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to go back now. But Steve was clearly homesick and Bucky wasn’t yet ready to leave him. So home he would go, to see where the next chapter of his life went.

His last meeting was at the end of July. When it was over, Sharon walked him out of the building. “How does it feel to be a free man?” she asked him, smiling.

He topped his head back and felt the sun warm his skin. “Less monumental than I thought it would,” he admitted.

She nodded, eyes scanning the street. Sharon was always at least a little on alert, studying her environment. “Well, on behalf of the JTTF, we thank you for your cooperation and wish you the best.” She grinned. “And on behalf of myself, I owe you a drink later. You were a trooper.”

He found himself smiling a little. “Steve wanted to throw a party. But I think it would just be you, him, me, and Sam.”

“I don’t know, that sounds like a hell of a party.”

She helped him talk Steve into just doing a fancy dinner at a restaurant downtown. Sharon wore a little red dress that caused Steve to fumble his words a couple times, much to the delight of Bucky and Sam.

The food was good and the company was nice. Sam and Sharon kept the conversation lively, avoiding any long awkward pauses. The food was delicious and in servings big enough for even Steve. The alcohol didn’t make him drunk, but it was high quality and burned pleasantly down his throat.

It had been a very long time since he’d had a night that good.

When they got back to the hotel, there was a box waiting in front of their door. The others tensed, but he knew who had left it, even before he bent and saw, _Soldat_ written on top.

“Buck?” Steve asked cautiously as he picked it up.

“It’s all right,” he said. It was lighter than he’d expected it to be, so he was pretty sure it wasn’t anything dangerous.

The three of them were watching him and he didn’t think he’d be able to get away with opening it later in private. So he eased the lid off, tucking it underneath the box. Inside was a vintage Captain America post card showing the Commandos in their “hero pose” they’d used in the Smithsonian mural. He picked it up to reveal a set of keys and a small pile of official looking paper work.

Turning the postcard over he found it addressed to a place in Brooklyn. The street sounded vaguely familiar, but when he tried to place it nothing came. On the left, in tiny cyrillic were two quotes.

_When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. - Oscar Wilde_

_Home’s where you go when you run out of homes. - John le Carre_

He wasn’t entirely sure what the first meant, other than as a reference to them not using each other’s names and the secrets he'd used to gain his freedom. The second, given the Brooklyn address and the keys, was a little easier to decipher.

“Buck?” Steve asked again. “What is it? You're smiling.”

And so he was. Whether it was the reassurance she was still out there looking out for him, or for the sudden, sure answer to the question of where he went now, he wasn’t sure. It might simply be that this was a good end to a great day.

He held the postcard out to Steve, still smiling. “Let’s go home.”


	5. Longing

The address led them to a building in northern Brooklyn. It wasn’t the building he’d grown up in. But it was a few blocks from an apartment he and Steve had shared before the war. It was familiar red brick, connected to the buildings flanking it. According to the paperwork she’d sent, it had been converted into one two bedroom condo on the second floor and a larger, three-bedroom place on the top two floors, with commercial space on the first floor. There was a bookstore in there now and the middle aged lady running had been delighted to meet the new owners.

Inside had been updated recently. Appliances new, shiny, and vaguely intimidating. The walls were painted a range of pleasant pastel-neutrals and the floors were gleaming wood.

“This is way too nice for the likes of us,” Steve commented, looking around.

“Speak for your damn self, Rogers,” Sam said from behind them. “How much you want for the lower apartment?”

They let him stay rent free, because God knew they didn’t have any rent to pay. Bucky knew there would probably be property taxes and the like, but the rent from the place downstairs would probably help with that. For all he knew, _vrach_ would pay it off herself.

He’d rather hoped she’d leave him another package when they got there, but though he checked every room, he found nothing.

The apartments were both furnished, impersonally but neatly. Steve had stuff upstate, in storage, and drove up with Sam to pick it up. Bucky had only the things he managed to bring with him when he ran from the police, so his unpacking didn’t take very long.

They fell into a sort of rhythm, the three of them. Sam found work with a local non-profit that supported vets. Steve did some public appearances, doing the dancing monkey routine on his own terms, and started drawing.

Bucky found watching him draw oddly soothing. It tended to stir up memories and he spent a lot of evenings in a chair in the corner of Steve’s studio, writing in his notebooks while he drew, in companionable silence.

It was a peaceful, quiet time, marred only by his frustration at not being able to find something to do with himself. Sharon was able to help him get proper identification, so he could get a job. Steve insisted he didn’t have to, since they had no rent to pay and he was bringing decent money with his appearances. It took a lot of thinking, but he was eventually able to explain that it wasn’t about money, it was about feeling useful. To his relief, Steve understood, but still had no answers.

On a cool autumn night, he was making a mess in the kitchen, trying to make dinner rolls to go with the roast cooking in the oven. His cooking had slowly started to improve. Steve would eat anything on a plate, but Sam was a hell of a critic and even he had started to hand out compliments. Bucky got the sense he was harsh as a reaction to Steve being so indiscriminate. He was never going to improve if someone wasn’t willing to tell him where he’d gone wrong.

He was rather hopeful about this roast. The marinade has smelled good, the cooking instructions had been straightforward, and the scent of it slowly filling the apartment was oddly familiar. He was less optimistic about the dinner rolls, but there was a tube of Pillsbury in the refrigerator if he got desperate. When experimenting with dinner, he tried to cover all his bases.

What he had not anticipated was the power going out.

It had probably been inevitable. Renovations or not, it was an old building in an old neighborhood. According to Denise, who ran the bookstore downstairs, there hadn’t been full time tenants up here in six months. The fuse box was probably pretty cranky.

He was still rummaging in cabinets for candles when he heard Sam’s footsteps clomping up the stairs.

“I can’t find the fuse box,” he called after opening the door.

Bucky paused in the middle of lighting a giant scented candle Natasha Romanoff had sent them with a note saying it “smelled the way Steve looked.” (She was right, it totally did.) 

Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t recall seeing a power box in their apartment either. “Are the neighbor buildings out?” he asked, hoping it might just be a power outage.

Sam had an enormous flashlight that might have actually been brighter than their actual overhead lights. “Nope. Lights are on across the street and I could hear the bar down the block from the stairwell.

If the box was in the bookstore Denise would have mentioned it - Denise mentioned everything. “Place like this probably has a basement,” he said. “Maybe it’s down there.”

“Spooky, spider-filled basement of a hundred year old building in a black-out.” Sam held the flashlight out to him. “Hell no, that’s a landlord job.”

“You’re an embarrassment,” Bucky informed him, taking the flashlight. He greatly enjoyed giving and taking shit with Sam. It felt so normal, especially when they managed to rope Steve in as well.

“But I will survive the horror movie.” He made shooing motions. “Go on, I’ll tell Steve you were very brave.”

Bucky made a face, but without the power on he wouldn’t be able to finish dinner. He could probably handle a spider or two.

He found the door hiding the basement stairs on the first floor, tucked under the stairs that led up to the apartments. The flashlight revealed them to be narrow and steep and, he was guessing, poorly lit in the best of circumstances.

Well, he probably couldn’t break his neck. He’d taken hits much worst than a fall down stairs. With a sigh, he eased carefully made his way down. At the bottom, he swept the beam of the flashlight along the wall until he spotted a tell-tale metal door. To his relief, the box had been upgraded from actual fuses to breakers, so getting the lights back on was just a matter of wiggling a few of the breakers until he found the tripped ones. 

After the third or fourth, the top of the stairs lit up from the lights in the lobby coming back on and he distantly heard Sam yell something that sounded happy.

Proud of himself, he turned back to the stairs, but was distracted by a collection of sheet-covered shapes on the other side of the room. There was a light switch at the bottom of the stairs. On impulse, he flipped it and went over to get a better look.

There were five, lumpy shapes, four roughly the same size, one bigger and more boxy. The building belonged to them. Denise had been there a long time, but the living areas had been empty long enough anything the previous tenants had left behind weren’t going to be claimed.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he reached out and tugged one of the sheets off to reveal a table saw. It looked brand-new and unused. As far as he could tell, it was an expensive piece of equipment to have left behind when moving. Even if you were going somewhere you had nowhere to put it, you could sell if for a few hundred dollars to offset moving costs.

Pulling off the other sheets revealed a planer, bandsaw, and lathe. The boxy shape proved to be a multi-drawer tool box full of hand tools. In the top drawer he found an envelope, heavy weight ivory paper with an intricate knot embossed on it.

A little fission of premonition went down his spine as he opened the envelope and pulled out the little note card of similarly fancy ivory paper.

_Soldat -_

_I hope the living arrangements are to your liking. Whatever you may think, I have fond memories of our time squatting in our own little brownstone, figuring out how to be people again. I especially recall your love of working with your hands and hope these give you a good start to finding that passion again. I can think of no more fitting future for a man forced to destroy than to create._

It was signed with an elegant V.

Turning in a circle, he surveyed the big empty basement. On the wall farthest from the stairs there were two large doors that, if his directional awareness was accurate, opened into the alley behind the building. It would be a very convenient place to deliver wood and, eventually, carry out completed furniture.

He ran a hand along the top of the tool box wishing, not for the first time, that she was here to see how well he was doing. To let him thank her for her help. Mostly, he supposed, he just missed her. It felt, sometimes, that he could never have everything he wanted. When he was with _vrach_ he had missed Steve and felt oddly detached from the past he was trying to reconnect with. With Steve he was happy, remembering things he’d thought lost to him. But Steve hadn’t been there in Hydra with him, and while he acknowledged the terrible things Bucky had done, he was eager to exonerate Bucky from them all. And that wasn’t what he wanted. There were still things about those years he needed to work through and Steve, despite the best of intentions, sometimes made that difficult.

Maybe this was how it was for everyone. Eventually, you had to choose a path. He liked being with Steve, liked the group of friends that had come with him. Liked feeling like the man he’d once been. As if the war and his years as the Soldier had been a pause button and now he was starting over. A little battered and scarred, perhaps, but a good man. Or at least trying to be. And one with a very strange guardian angel.

Glancing back at the note, he smiled, almost despite himself. He was going to need a lot of wood.

_Six Months Later_

When Bucky sold his first piece of furniture to an actual customer, not one of his friends or neighbors, Steve and Sam took him out drinking. They invited Sharon and Natasha, who was in town for a meeting with the UN.

He liked Nat. She was calm and sarcastic. She spoke Russian with him to weird out the others. And from what he knew of her past, she was a shining example that redemption was possible. She was also very pretty and seemed to be flirting with him. He was pretty rusty at it, but it was definitely different than the way she spoke with Steve and Sam.

It was very tempting. Women had flirted with him, on occasion, when he was in hiding in Romania. Back then, he was still so fucked in the head, he couldn’t even comprehend bringing one of them back to his little hovel. He was a lot better now. More stable. Sure of himself. Able to acknowledge interest in a woman. Especially a smart, sexy one who was clearly into him.

Still, at the end of the night, when the opportunity presented itself to invite her up, he just smiled and said goodnight.

Sam looked at him like he was nuts the whole walk home. Bucky very deliberately didn’t look at him, or at Steve and Sharon holding hands behind him. Though he had to admit he felt a pang of regret when they all said their goodnights and the two of them went into Steve’s room and closed the door.

He lay in his room a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying not to hear any of the faint noises coming from down the hall. When he couldn’t stand it anymore he got up, tugged on a pair of sturdy boots and the leather jacket Sharon had convinced him to buy, and headed out into the chilly spring night.

It wasn’t that he was jealous, or so he tried to tell himself. He was happy for Steve and glad he’d found someone. Sharon was good for him. She’d changed jobs a few months ago so she could live closer and they could see each other more often. Steve had been very touched at the gesture, though he’d blustered about it to begin with. Bucky suspected it was only a matter of time before she moved in and he couldn’t be going on midnight walks every night.

He’d had good reasons for not bringing Nat home - or going to her hotel to avoid an awkward morning. Even if he couldn’t have articulated them to anyone else, his gut told him it was the right thing. And for better or worse, his instincts usually did right by him.

Though he could admit, at least to himself, in the middle of the night, that he was lonely. And seeing Steve and Sharon together made him lonelier. The man he’d once been had expected to get married and start a family. Little white picket fence in the suburbs, or, more likely, a crowed apartment near the bridge. Either way, there’d been a girl in it. Someone tough but sweet who’d raise the kids and cook him dinner and negotiate like a lawyer with the butcher and fishmonger. Like the dim memories of his mother, waving a wooden spoon and shooing him and Steve out to play in the streets.

Maybe this was how healing happened. His memory was better, he had friends and somewhere to live, and he was finding his niche building furniture. The checklist was getting shorter and now it was time to think about a relationship with a woman.

Of course, he probably had to try to forget a certain woman before he could think about another one.

He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t noticed the sound of footsteps at first. When he did he thought he might be imagining because the pattern was so familiar. But when he looked up, he found the street deserted save for a lone figure walking towards him. She was wrapped in a long tan coat, hands tucked into the pockets, high heels clicking against the sidewalk.

“Hello, _soldat_ ,” she said when she reached him.

He didn’t know how she could be here, but when he was thinking about her. But he was happy to see her and he didn’t want to pretend he wasn’t. “Hello, _vrach_.”

She smiled, as if she hadn’t been entirely sure he’d greet her. “What are you doing wandering the streets at this time of night?”

“Clearing my head.” He studied her face. “What about you? It’s dangerous to be out by yourself.”

Her smile widened. “I think the most dangerous things out on the street tonight are right here.” She stepped to the side and turned, looking at him expectantly until he fell into step beside her and they began walking back wherever she’d come from.

“I’m in New York on business,” she told him. “And I don’t sleep much. It’s finally warm enough to go walking without freezing.”

“You never liked the cold,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “Your business. Anything I’ll hear about?” Occasionally, he would see a headline or catch a snippet of news and know, somehow, that it had her finger prints all over it. There had been a bomb threat at a commerce summit in Liechtenstein a month ago that had proven to be a hoax, but had successfully derailed negotiations on some EU sanctions. It was a little more blunt instrument than her usual work, but it had clearly worked.

“Maybe,” she said. She gestured in the general direction of Manhattan, hidden behind several blocks of buildings. “A group of people who happen to be on a particular zoning committee are attending a fundraising dinner right now. Due to some unfortunate food handling procedures, many of them will become ill. Their next meeting is scheduled for Monday night but will be cancelled, delaying a vote about a particular zoning decision. Allowing my client to get the plans for their new headquarters approved and therefore grandfathered in whenever the vote gets rescheduled.”

He stared at her a moment. “That’s worth making a bunch of people sick?”

“None of them are over sixty-five, immunocompromised, or allergic to any food. None of them live alone, so they will have someone to take care of them or call an ambulance if they take a turn for the worse. In a week they’ll be back on their feet complaining about bad shellfish. In a month they’ll be happily eating ham at Easter.” She looked up at him. “I take great care not to permanently harm people. The least you could do is give me the benefit of the doubt.”

Feeling a bit chastised, he asked, “Because of me?”

She shrugged, looking almost uncomfortable. “You asked me not to kill. I keep my promises. It would be easier not to, but -“ She paused and shook her head. “I keep my promises.”

“Have you ever thought of doing something else?” he asked. “Using what you do for good?”

“I don’t think there’s a way to do what I do and remain on the side of the angels. But your desire to redeem me is admirable.”

He’d had a sudden, impossible image of her coming over to the apartment for dinner or meeting him and the others for drinks. And he knew the impossibility wasn’t just about her. He couldn’t see Steve or Sam or, God, Sharon welcoming her with open arms. She wasn’t - and could never be - a part of his life. He’d turned his back on the part of him that was the Soldier and that was the only part of him she knew.

As if reading his thoughts, she smiled and stopped walking so that he would turn to look at her. “Go home, _soldat_ ,” she said gently. “Go back to your friends and your furniture and your life. Make Hydra and the Soldier a distant nightmare. I promise to leave you alone.”  
Without waiting for a response, she started to walk away from him.

He thought of his empty room and the spikes of jealousy he pretended not to have when he looked at Steve and Sharon. He thought about the gorgeous red-head he’d turned away from earlier tonight. He thought about a checklist he’d been pondering before, and why he was having trouble crossing off a particular item.

Then he reached out and caught her arm.

She turned back, clearly surprised. But she clearly read his intent because she was reaching for him even as he leaned down to kiss her. Her fingers sunk into his hair and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him. He could feel the strength in her, the iron the serum had given her body. But still, she melted against him, supple and warm and undeniable female.

It probably looked very romantic to an outsider. The two of them wrapped around each other, kissing in the moonlight. He’d watched dozens of black and white movies with scenes like this. Admittedly, now he could only remember fractions of them, but he remembered enough for this to feel familiar.

When he lifted his head, he didn’t go far, resting his forehead on hers. She didn’t immediately open her eye, a soft little smile lingering on her lips. When she did finally meet his gaze her pupil was wide, eye dark. “We’ve waited a long time for that,” she said softly.

He smiled, brushing her hair back from her face. “Yes, we have.”

She studied him a moment and he wondered what she saw when she looked at him. What patterns he was a part of.

“My hotel is a few blocks from here,” she said softly.

It was all the invitation he needed. He barely remembered the rest of the walk, or the long elevator ride up to the penthouse where she was staying. In her room, a wall of windows revealed a breath-taking view of the Manhattan skyline. The room was opulent, at least by his standards. Plush carpet, silk upholstered furniture. The coffee table looked to be real wood.

He passed it all in a blur, lost in kissing her and the struggle to get undressed. He would not have thought women’s clothes could get any more complicated than they’d been in his youth. But trying to find the fastening of her dress slacks would have made a great cognition test back when his brain was getting regularly fried.

She laughed at his struggle, sounded very young and happy, something he would have thought impossible. He would have fought with it half the night to make her laugh again, but she gently brushed his hands away. “You do yours, I’ll do mine,” she told him, kissing his jaw.

That was the best idea he’d heard all day, so he staggered a couple steps away and sat on the end of the massive king bed to take his boots off. He was almost immediately distracted by the sight of her unhooking something at her hip and wiggling out of her slacks. The sight of her long, pale legs stopped his higher thinking for a moment.

When she started to unbutton her blouse he realized he needed his pants off to properly enjoy this. So he yanked his boots off and peeled down his jeans. Her blouse hit the ground, followed immediately by her bra. At that point, he couldn’t resist any longer and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her roughly.

On the few times Steve had spoken of the physical aspects of his relationship with Sharon, he’d mentioned almost constant worry about hurting her. Bucky got the sense that Sharon was happy to deal with a few bruises and sore spots for the sake of good sex. But Steve was Steve and, in his defense, if he really went all out he could significantly hurt her. Bucky had never seen it first hand, but knew exactly how much damage he could do and Steve had proven he could go head-for-head with him.

But he didn’t have to worry about any of that. _Vrach_ was a super soldier, as sure as he and Steve were. They could wreck the room and neither of them would get so much as a scrape. In fact, he was now making room wreckage high on his list of goals.

They kissed in the middle of the room, hands roaming now bare skin. Curling a hand around her thigh, he tugged it up, coaxing her into wrapping her leg around him. After that it was a simple matter to lift her up and take a few steps forward to pin her to the wall.

She laughed a little against his mouth, hitching herself higher, both legs now wound tightly around him. It too only a little rearranging to get her in the proper position, and then the head of his cock was pressed against the hot, slick entrance of her body. He hesitated, having the sudden sense he was about to cross a bridge there was no coming back from. But she kissed him, soft and tender, and he found he didn’t care. For better or worse, he wanted this, wanted her. The only way was forward, he’d deal with the repercussions later.

Tilting his hips, he thrust into her heat. She closed around him, body clenching at the intrusion. It felt incredible. So good he could only press her into the wall, breathing hard. She seemed to understand, simply stroking his hair and resting her cheek against his. When he did finally start to move, she shuddered, making a soft sound of pleasure. Her hand tightened in his hair and he pressed her more firmly into the wall so he could go deeper.

It was fast, and rough, and while they didn’t actually break anything, he could hear the wall creak and groan. Had the hotel been any less well built they might have gone right through. He could feel her getting close to her climax and she leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Hard.”

He growled and shifted his grip on her so he could brace one hand on the wall behind her and gave her more. She gasped, nails digging into his back as her body clenched and rippled around him. A few more hard strokes and he followed her, burying himself deep.

When the world stopped spinning, he opened his eyes and saw he had, in fact, left cracks in the plaster.

“You look rather smug,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“Do you blame me?” She laughed, breathless, and held him tight as he shifted again and wrapped both arms around her. His legs were wobbly, but he managed to stagger a few steps and get them both onto the bed.

They lay together, breathing hard, while their skin cooled and their hearts stopped pounding. He reached out to trail his metal fingers along her arm, drinking in the sight of her. “My _vrach_.”

She started to laugh, looking as happy as he’d ever seen her. “You know they called me that as an insult, right?”

He frowned, hand stilling. “It means ‘doctor.’”

“Yes, but most Russians just used the word ‘doctor.’ At least after the Cold War ended. Using _vrach_ was. . . sarcastic. They were doubting I was really a doctor, really qualified.”

He stared at her a moment, utterly flummoxed. Then she grinned and he started to laugh, tugging her closer so he could kiss her again. 

“All right,” he said when he lifted his head. “I can’t keep calling you that. You need to give me something else.”

She sobered immediately, studying him, eye darting back and forth. He refused to look away, somehow feeling this was an important moment in their relationship, whatever it was. Whatever she had been to him before, this had changed it. And he was giving himself permission to push her a little.

Finally, very quietly, she said, “Amanda.”

“That’s your name?”

“It was. Before.” She smiled crookedly. “Everyone calls me the Doctor now. I’m very mysterious.”

He kissed her again, tenderly. “I’ll guard the information with my life.”

She trailed her hand across his chest. “Should I keep calling you _soldat_?” she asked. “Or do I need to come to terms with Bucky?”

That was a good question. Everyone called him Bucky, because that’s what Steve called him. When Zemo, pretending to be a psychiatrist, had called him James he’d corrected him. But he’d been a lot less sure of himself and his identity back then. And hadn’t liked the man very much. He was used to her calling him _soldat_ but that wasn’t who he was, really. Not even with her. But having her call him the name Steve had, essentially, given him didn’t seem quite right, either.

“You can call me James,” he told her. “He was pretty popular with the ladies.”

She grinned widely and leaned in, kissing him deeply. Deep enough, he let his hands roam her body. With a soft, sexy noise she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body against his.

Much later, they lay tangled in the bedsheets, room lit only by the glow of the city outside the window. Bucky was dozing a little, officially worn out, which he didn’t think was possible without some sort of fight for his life.

“Will Rogers be worried about you?” Amanda said softly, breath tickling his throat.

Shit. He opened his eyes. “If I’m not home before he wakes up, yeah, probably.”

“You could call him,” she murmured. “Be home late. Sexing up a criminal mastermind.”

He couldn’t help but smile, rubbing her back gently. “Is that what you are?”

“Well, I hate to label things. But it’s good enough.”

Yeah, Steve probably wouldn’t be okay with that. Up until now, he’d managed to be pretty vague about who she was. He imagined it bothered Steve a little to know she’d bought their building for them. But since it seemed to have been bought legally and with no way to trace who the hell she was, he’d mostly had to let if go. If Bucky was going to be spending all night in her hotel room, he was probably going to start getting a bit more curious about her and where her money came from.

He was going to worry about that later. For now, he had a few more minutes and he was going to enjoy them. He buried his face in her hair, taking a deep breath. “Are you richer than Tony Stark?”

She chuckled. “No. But I do all right.”

“So if the furniture building doesn’t work out I can be a kept man?”

She didn’t answer right away and for a moment he was panicked he might have somehow offended her. Then she curled a little closer to him, nuzzling his shoulder. “I would be all for that.”

Her tone was softer and more serious than the tease warranted, but he sympathized. Something like that would be far more simple than whatever it was they were doing. He didn’t have any words that might make it better. So he just held her close and breathed her in for as long as he could.


	6. One

He got home just after dawn, walking amongst the morning commuters. He’d intended to leave Amanda’s bed earlier than that, but had found sleeping next to her gave him the best night’s sleep he could recall. When he had finally forced himself to crawl out of bed, she’d offered him a shower or breakfast, but he didn’t think putting off the awkward conversation with Steve would do anyone any good.

He had kissed her goodbye, long and thoroughly, to hold them both until he saw her again. And he didn’t have a single regret, feeling completely settled for the first time he could remember.

Still, he sort of hoped Steve would still be asleep and he could avoid facing the music entirely.

Unfortunately, the first thing he saw when he walked into the apartment was Steve, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. Bucky paused, door half open, briefly considering turning around and walking out. Steve seemed to read the thoughts on his face, because his brows went up over the coffee mug.

Reminding himself he was the goddamned Winter Soldier, he stepped the rest of the way inside and went over to the coffee pot. “You’re up early.”

“Sharon had a meeting,” Steve said, tone neutral. “I got up with her.”

Bucky wondered what Sharon had thought of the fact he was out all night. Unless Steve hadn’t noticed until after she’d left. He sometimes woke Bucky up for a run when he was awake early. “I went for a walk,” he said, trying not to sound defensive. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You walked all night?”

It was the prefect opening. He could lie, tell him he’d just wandered the borough till dawn. It might make him worry a bit about Bucky’s insomnia, but it would almost certainly end the interrogation before it started.

He was a lot of things, but he liked to think he wasn’t a coward. “I ran into _vrach_.” He waited for recognition to flit across Steve’s face before adding, “I went back to her hotel with her.”

Steve’s mug hit the table with a gentle thunk. Bucky finished fixing his coffee and walked over to sit across from him at the table. If they were going to do it, they should just do it.

“Buck,” he said finally, very carefully. “Are you - How much do you really know about her?”

He hesitated a moment, thinking of all the things he knew that really weren’t his secrets to tell. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “Hydra held her captive and tried to force her to make a serum. Like the one you got. She succeeded, but hid it from them. After the fall. . . we stayed together for a while. I was trying to put myself back together. She wanted revenge against the people who had hurt us.” He paused to sip his coffee and, mercifully, Steve didn’t push.

“One of them stabbed her,” Bucky said. “She bled out, but managed to come home. I didn’t - at the time she was all I had. So I gave her the serum she’d made.”

Steve blew out a breath and leaned back. “You saw Schmidt. You saw what it could do.”

“I know. But I believed in her. And I couldn’t let her die.” Knowing what he knew now he’d do it again, he was dead sure of that. “When she woke up she was stronger, like us. But she was smarter. She said the serum enhanced what you are and she was already brilliant. The serum made her see the world differently. And she used that to manipulate events to her advantage.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Steve offered, “That doesn’t sound particularly legal.”

“It’s not,” he admitted. “Most of it, anyway. But she’s promised me she doesn’t kill anyone.”

“And you believe her?”

“I do. She’s never lied to me.” He had to believe that was still true, that it would hopefully always be true.

It said a lot about their friendship that Steve seemed to take that as good enough. “So what now? Are you. . . a couple?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Last night was. . . I was happy. She makes me happy. But she’s not here full time and I have no intention of trailing after her around the world. So for now we’re leaving it as just last night. She’ll contact me next time she’s in town.”

Steve didn’t look happy about any of this. From the criminal activity to the casual nature of it all. But all he said was, “Next time let me know if you’re going to be out all night?”

“I promise,” Bucky told him solemnly.

He nodded, then added, “And maybe don’t tell Sharon you’re sleeping with an evil mastermind.”

Normally, he’d have prickled at the use of the word “evil.” But Steve was clearly trying to joke around with him and Amanda would probably smile at the description, so he let it go.

And for a while, that’s all there was to it. Sometimes he still saw news stories that reminded him of her. Sometimes he got a postcard from a particular hotel and would meet her for a night or two. Steve sometimes made faces but never said anything. It was enough.

Spring became summer. Sam got a girlfriend and later a boyfriend. At times Bucky could almost forget the soldier and weapon he had been. He was just Bucky, Steve and Sam’s friend. He sold handmade furniture a the local flea market and cooked gourmet food out of cookbooks from second hand shops. He wore too many layers of clothing for the weather and had a running text message conversation with Sharon on where to find the best burgers in the city. He still had dreams, sometimes, of cryo and handlers and violence. On those nights he went for long walks or worked on his furniture.

On Steve’s birthday they went on the roof to watch the distant fireworks light up over Manhattan. Steve put his arm around Sharon’s shoulders and Sam held hands with his boyfriend, Daniel. Bucky felt an odd sort of melancholy. Happy, surrounded by friends, but somehow isolated and lonely as well.  
A few days later, a package arrived for him, containing only a cellphone with an international phone number programmed into it. Steve saw him open it, but didn’t comment.

Late that night, when he was sure Steve was asleep and he had privacy, he called the number.

“ _Soldat_ ,” she answered with, tone warm and soft.

Something unclenched in his chest, something he had only been barely aware of until that moment. “Amanda. I miss you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding sincere. “I’ll be in New York again next month.”

“Where are you now?”

“Prague.” There was no pause or hesitation before her answer and he took a moment to appreciate what that kind of honesty probably cost her. “Checking up on one of my operatives.”

“Did he fail you?” he teased. Once the words were out of his mouth it occurred to him that the might _actually_ have failed her and he probably didn’t want to know what she did to people who failed her.

To his relief, she chuckled. “No. He’s ill. I hadn’t heard anything from him in a while and found out he was hospitalized. I came to make sure any bills were taken care of and his family didn’t need anything.”

That had been the last thing he’d expected. “You - you sound like a really good boss.”

The chuckle became a real laugh. “I try. My retention rate is very high, though admittedly there aren’t a lot of statistics on the employee satisfaction of criminal empires.”

“Do you think we’ll ever have a normal date?” he asked.

“Define normal.”

Dating had almost certainly changed since the last time he was on one. Still, he’d been in the world long enough to have some context. “Dinner at a restaurant, some sort of external entertainment, then sexual contact based on our current level of intimacy.”

“Goodness, that sound thrilling,” she teased him. When he didn’t reply she asked, quieter, “Is that what you want to do?”

Now that he said it out loud it did see a bit anticlimactic. Still, he kind of liked the idea of taking her out somewhere, getting her opinion on an art show or something. Showing her off. “I’d like to try it out.”

She was silent, long enough to worry him. Then she said, “I’d like that.”

He grinned, feeling silly for being this excited. “All right then.”

“I have to go, and if my math is right you should be sleeping. But you can call this number whenever you want to talk to me and I’ll answer if I can.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Be safe.”

“I take excellent care of myself, James.” She sounded patient and a little exasperated, exactly the way Sharon did when Steve was fussing over her. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

After that, they spoke fairly frequently. He didn’t call every night, though he might have been tempted to. She called him as well, sometimes at very odd hours. Conversations lasted five minutes or two hours, on all manner of things. He found out bits and pieces of her work and the way her organization functioned. Despite the topic, hearing her gripe about her temperamental lieutenants or a job that had fallen through felt familiar. It was the same as Sharon complaining about sexist coworkers or Sam stressing out about a particular volunteer program that wasn’t working out.

At times, he tried to picture her sitting at the table with the rest of them, drinking her tea and eating cookies while they talked about their days. After their conversations, it seemed almost doable. That me might be able to fold her into his life, at least when she was in town. He would no longer be alone, even surrounded by his friends.

He wondered, sometimes, if she had friends. If he was the only person she had to confide in. Maybe she’d welcome the idea of joining his life. Maybe she and Sharon could bitch about sexism and she and Steve could debate morality.

Because a bunch of superheroes and a CIA agent would definitely accept a legitimate supervillain as a dinner companion.

Her visit in August turned out to be shorter than expected. They went to dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel she stayed at before retiring up to her room. It wasn’t the “normal” date he’d pictured, but it was something.

Fall came to the city, the trees changed colors and the wind began to bite and chill. Steve’s drawings started to take up more and more space. Sharon and Bucky conspired and turned the spare room into a proper studio with an easel and a new set of oil paints. Steve insisted they were too nice for him, but by the end of the day had half a dozen paintings planned, mostly based on famous works of literature. Bucky and Sharon exchanged smiles and worked out a schedule to keep him fed.

His stand at the flea market grew more and more popular. Amanda encouraged him to make business cards, and Steve helped design them. By the middle of October he had enough orders he no longer had to keep the stall open every weekend.

One day, a few days after Halloween, the chill in the air drove him from his workshop in the basement and back upstairs to the warmth of the apartment. Steve had emerged from his art studio to start supper and looked up in surprise when he saw Bucky. “You’re done early.”

“It’s freezing down there,” he told him, beelining for the coffeepot. “I wasn’t working as much last winter so I’d just come upstairs when it got cold. I can’t afford to shorten my hours now.”

“Space heater time?” Steve asked, lining bacon up on a baking sheet.

“I guess so. I’ll have to do research on how to best do it. There’s a lot of wood chips and sawdust in the air, I don’t want to get something that might start a fire.” He started another half a pot and turned to peer at the bacon. “Whatcha making?”

“Baked potato soup,” he replied, gesturing to the pot bubbling on the stove. “Sharon’s supposed to be over later.”

“Let me wash my hands and I’ll help.” Another cozy evening at home. Maybe after they’d retired to their bedroom he’d call Amanda and see that the weather was wherever she was. Last time it had been Hong Kong, but that was four days ago. She could be anywhere now. Anywhere except here.

She had promised to be in New York for Christmas. He was considering, strongly, asking her to come and meet his family. He couldn’t hide her forever. Couldn’t live a half life, with his feet in this world he’d made with Steve and the others, but his heart and mind always distracted by her.

He hadn’t broached this wild plan of his to her yet. There were almost two months until Christmas and he didn’t want to spend both of them bickering over this.

Even the idea of having someone to bicker with made him smile.

The soup came out delicious. Sharon arrived just as they were adding the last dashes of cream and pepper. They called down to Sam to join them, but his apartment was dark - either working late or on a date. The three of them sat and ate, talking about Bucky’s latest project, Steve’s slow but steady progress on his painting and Sharon’s latest case. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the windows. They joked about it being a bad night to be a pigeon as they cleaned up the dishes.

Over the clatter of plates and running water and wind, Bucky heard a knock at their door. The others looked over, assuring him he wasn’t imagining things.

“Must be Denise,” he said, wiping his hands down. It was unlikely, given the hour. Denise went home promptly, especially in bad weather. But everyone else would have had to be buzzed in at the front door. And Sam would have walked in without a knock. No one else had a key to the front door.

“See if she wants soup,” Steve called after him. As always, they’d made way too much food.

Bucky was grinning when he opened their front door.

And revealed Amanda standing there, in a clean, crisp suit with a heavy wool coat. Her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold but when the warm light from the living room behind him fell on her, she smiled. “Hello, James.”


	7. Benign

He stared at her, unable to think, barely able to breathe. “What-“ he managed to whisper. “What are you doing here.”

“Buck?” Steve called from behind him. “Who is it?”

Amanda’s gaze moved from his face to a spot over his shoulder and her smile tightened into something false. Bucky glanced behind him to see Steve in the living room looking at Amanda with a mix of surprise and distrust.

“I’ve come across some information,” she said, mostly to Steve, he thought. “That you might find interesting.”

She tossed it out like a challenge. For a long moment no one said anything, silence heavy and taut. Then, quietly, Steve said, “Would you care for some soup?”

Her smile shifted back into sincerity. “That sounds lovely.”

Five minutes later she was sitting at his kitchen table, eating a bowl of potato soup and tapping at something on her phone. In the other room, Steve and Sharon were having some sort of whispering argument as he tried to explain who Amanda was and she raged at the fact he hadn't told her about her before.

“I’ve thought about you sitting here countless time,” Bucky told her, sitting across from her.

Looking up, she tucked her phone away and picked up her spoon again. “How does reality live up to fantasy?”

“I think I mentally skipped over the awkward early parts,” he admitted.

She smiled and reached out to brush a knuckle over the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I would have liked to have done it better, but there was a certain amount of urgency.”

Steve and Sharon filed back into the room, on the border of stomping. There was a certain simmering air of resentment as they sat down, but when Steve turned to Amanda his tone was almost casual. “What information do you have?”

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a Stark phone - a different one than the ones she’d been typing on earlier - and scrolled a moment before setting it on the table and pulling the image on it into 3D. It showed a futuristic looking building, all metal and glass, with banks of solar panels. “Do you know what this is?”

“Stark’s new hospital,” Sharon said. “The one he built upstate.”

“Correct,” Amanda said. “Top of the line, equipment that’s never been seen in the country before. It had a soft opening last month, but the formal ribbon cutting is tomorrow night. It’s run entirely on reactor and solar power - completely off grid. If it’s successfully self sustaining it could be the jumpstart Stark needs to press forward with his clean energy plans. This makes it a very dangerous building for a lot of people invested in oil and coal.”

“Someone’s going to sabotage a _hospital_?” Steve asked.

“Someone is going to blow up a hospital,” Amanda corrected him. “Casualties will be in the hundreds, including three dozen children and possibly Stark himself. The king of Wakanda is rumored to be there, as well.”

Sharon squinted at the picture of the building. “How do you know this?”

Bucky knew the answer even before she spoke. “I was approached with the job a few months ago.”

“But you didn’t take it?” he asked quietly.

She looked over at him. “They refused to accept an answer that didn’t include deaths. They insisted it was necessary people die for it to properly derail the clean energy concept. I told them they were short sighted and I wasn’t interested.”

“Because you’re so scrupulous?” Sharon said.

Amanda turned to look at her. “I was a doctor once. I like hospitals.”

“Oh my God, are you _the_ Doctor?” Amanda just smiled and Sharon banged a hand on the table before crossing her arms.

Looking rather pleased at being recognized, Amanda continued, “I kept an ear out for anyone who did pick it up. It seemed to drop of the map, but earlier this week I got confirmation a competitor had set plans in motion to compromise the safety features on the reactor and cause an overload. The resulting explosion would be devastating.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Bucky asked.

“I made an attempt to cut it off at the pass with my own methods. It failed. I couldn’t be sure Stark would take an anonymous warning seriously. So I came here.”

“Tony’s not going to listen to me,” Steve said. “I doubt he’d even take my call.” Sharon softened enough to each over and rub his back gently.

“Then I suppose it’s up to us to get our hands dirty,” Amanda said easily.

Based on his facial expression, and sudden change in posture, Steve was on the verge of arguing with her. Bucky shifted, ready to argue with him.

Then Sharon spoke and took the wind out both their sails. “Do you have a plan?”

“I have several plans,” Amanda replied brightly. “But we’ll start with the ones of the hospital basement.”

The next several hours were going over schematics she definitely wasn’t supposed to own. With a mission in the works and at least some sort of informal truce between them, she and Steve worked very well as strategists. Amanda had never fought a war and Steve didn’t understand the intricacies of the reactor and hospital security system. Together they hammered out a plan the four of them could manage, with contingencies in case they roped Sam into it. Steve was pretty adamant they not involve him. He’d adapted to civilian life easier and faster than the rest of them and dragging him back, even for a brief mission like this, was no one’s first choice. On the other hand, they were all pretty sure that if he caught them going out the next day, he would immediately sign up to come and nothing they said would be able to dissuade him.

It was near midnight when they all trudged up to bed. Bucky got the distinct sense that Sharon and Steve would have liked to stay up and interrogate Amanda, or at the very least keep an eye on her. But they needed to get an early start tomorrow if they were going to make it upstate in time to do anything. So to bed they went.

“I may need to borrow some clothes,” Amanda said when they were alone in his room.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, half to himself as he rummaged in his drawers to find her a shirt to sleep in.

“Believe it or not, it’s a little surreal for me.” He glanced back to see her perched almost nervously on his bed. She looked around the room then out the window. “I have good taste in buildings.”

He smiled, relaxing a little. “You do.” He brought her the shirt. “Are you going to break into the hospital in a suit?”

Taking the shirt from him, she smoothed her hand over the worn cotton. “I’ll have you know I can do a lot in Louboutins. But no, I’ll need to stop at my hotel to change before we go up.”

Sinking down onto the bed beside her, he studied her a moment. She looked tired, and he knew how hard it was to make her tired. He wondered how long it had been since she’d slept. He wondered how long this hospital problem had been weighing on her.

He looped an arm around her and tugged her closer, dropping a gentle, affectionate kiss on her mouth. “You need sleep.”

Surprised flickered over her face and he kind of expected her to protest. Instead, she just nodded and reached down to take her shoes off. When she fumbled a little, he realized she was even more exhausted than he’d thought. When he helped her with her jacket she didn’t comment. Nor did she protest when he unbuttoned her shirt and unzipped her slacks. 

She managed to take off her bra and tug his shirt on herself, then she helped him tug his covers down and climbed into his bed.

He shed his clothes down to his shorts, then joined her, tucking her into his side.

“You take good care of me,” she mumbled, wrapping her arm around his waist.

It had never occurred to him that she might see it that way. The days of him caring for her were long in the past. He owed her everything. His job, his house. His very freedom. At this point, he really didn’t know what he had to offer her.

But he could make her soup and help her sleep when she needed it. He could be her conscience and a safe harbor. She could need him as much as he needed her.

He slept soundly with her at his side, waking only once in the early morning after a vague dream. She was still at his side, hands curled into loose fists near her face. For a while, he watched her sleep, until the slow rise and fall of her chest lulled him back to sleep.

When he woke again sunlight was filtering around the edges of curtains and he was alone in bed. He beat down the initial flutters of dread, telling himself there was no reason to rush out and look for her. Steve and Sharon might not be entirely happy about working with her, but they weren’t going to arrest her behind his back. She’d probably see it coming anyway.

Sure enough, once he got dressed and stepped out into the hallway, he heard her voice drifting up the stairs. He couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, it didn’t sound like English. Pausing at the top of the stairs he listened. His Ukranian was pretty rusty, but she appeared to be confirming the delivery date of some sort of package. She said her goodbyes and hung up before he could suss out details.

Bucky started down the stairs but stopped again when he heard Steve’s voice.  
“Coffee?”

“No. Thank you,” Amanda replied. “I don’t drink it.”

He should go in there and rescue them from the awkward small talk. Then Steve apparently decided to go straight for the throat and said, “Why are you really doing this?”

There was only a slight pause before she replied, “Because I thought it’s what James would want me to do.”

He was certain that wasn’t the answer Steve had been expecting. He sounded less hostile and more skeptical when he followed up with, “Why does that matter to you?”

This pause was much longer. Bucky was almost certain she wasn’t going to answer. Maybe she didn’t have an answer or maybe it was just too personal to share with Steve. He needed to go in there and break it up, before Steve pressed her or she got defensive.

“Love is a human construct.”

He froze, foot in midair when he heard her voice, quiet and almost contemplative. Setting his foot down silently he all but held his breath as he listened to her answer.

“It’s a word we gave a series of chemical reactions. Physiologically speaking, it’s no different from eating a good piece of chocolate. And yet. . .”

She trailed off into silence long enough for Steve to offer, “Are you saying you love Bucky?”

“I don’t feel many emotions. They're still there but. . . duller. Easy to ignore. I tend to react with logic. My reactions where he is concerned are not logical.” He could picture the wry smile she almost certainly had on her face. “He sees you as an echo of the man he once was. He associates me with being the Soldier. He needs us both because he is both. I have no one who knew me before Hydra took me. But he was there with me. He reminds me of who I was once, before the serum changed how I saw the world. I try to be the person he thinks I can be. If I didn’t have that. . . well, I think I would be something very dark.”

Blood was roaring in his ears, so loud he didn’t hear if Steve replied or not. He’d been aware, in a vague, unconscious way, of what she and Steve represented to him. Hearing it laid out that way was still a bit of a blow. He couldn’t even begin to process the idea that he was the only thing standing between her and darkness.

There was a soft footstep on the stairs behind him and he jerked his head around to see Sharon cautiously approaching him. “You okay?” she asked softly.

He nodded, though he felt anything but okay. “Are you two all right?” He really didn’t want him and Amanda to come between Steve and Sharon.

She smiled. “Best part of fighting is making up. We’re just fine, don’t worry.”

They walked down together and found Amanda and Steve eating together in what seemed like companionable silence. She was in a dark grey sweater and black tactical pants with heavy duty boots. Clearly she’d been up long enough to run for a change of clothes.

Ignoring their audience, Bucky walked over to her and bent to kiss her. The intensity of it probably gave away the fact he’d been eavesdropping, based on the smile she gave him when he lifted his head.

“Good morning, _Soldat_ ,” she said quietly.

Holding her gaze, he replied, “Ready to be a hero, _vrach_?”

Her expression softened and for a breath she looked young and vulnerable. “Just this once.”

It all went pretty smoothly, as missions went. The hardest part was getting to the hospital, since they were already locking down in anticipation of the ribbon cutting gala. The two back entrances they’d planned on using were gated and guarded. So Amanda made a few phone calls and managed to get them on someone’s vendor list as technical contractors and they were waved through.

“Tony doesn’t need any technical help,” Steve pointed out mildly.

“Apparently, the guards don’t know that,” Amanda replied in the same tone.

He didn’t know how the sabotagers got in. Maybe they’d snuck in before the lockdown and just loitered about. Probably wasn’t relevant. He and Steve got to knock some heads. Sharon snooped around to make sure nothing else had been tampered with. And Amanda reversed what had been done, so that all the various dials and warning lights went back to cheerful green.

Steve and Sharon didn’t trust that there would only be one attack. Bucky thought they were being paranoid, but Amanda conceded that the competitor who had taken the job was very thorough. So they’d hung out in the basement as the party raged on upstairs. One of Amanda’s phones was able to get enough signal to watch the media coverage of the party upstairs. Bucky noticed Steve looked a little forlorn when Stark was on screen. They hadn’t spoken since Steve had confessed Bucky’s role in Howard and Maria’s deaths. Bucky wondered if it was time to mend fences. In a slightly more obvious way than secretly saving Stark’s life.

Now was almost certainly not the time to bring it up, though. So they waited. And when the party broke up and the last of the guests were trickling out they did too.

Dinner was at a diner a few dozen miles south, telling mission and war stories over french fries and milkshakes. After Sharon swore on her burger that she was granting amnesty, Amanda even told a couple of stories of her more amusing jobs.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Sharon waved a hand. “You’re telling me you cause a swing in the stock market with a kitten?”

Amanda grinned and sipped her tea. “The market swing was a happy accident. I was just trying to get a merger to go through. The hold out CEO was very inscrutable, no weak spots or hidden secrets I could ferret out. Eventually I found a very old interview with her wherein she mentioned having a cat as a child. A trip to her hometown for information later, I had a picture of said cat, gorgeous tortoiseshell. A shelter in Pennsylvania had one, I obtained it with a hefty donation and had it delivered to her townhouse with a vague note. When gifts are unsigned a person will immediately assume they’re from someone who has wronged them or someone they otherwise deserve a gift from. So she assumed it was from the other side of the merger. Two days later they’d agreed to terms. Last I checked the cat was living like a queen.”

Sharon shook her head. “You have your fingers in more pies than anyone realized.”

“It’s always good to diversify.” She glanced at her watch. “On that note, I’d better be going. Have to make sure everyone knows when I say a job is a no go, I mean it.” She stood and Bucky glanced out the diner window, noting a sleek black town car had pulled into the lot.

“Thank you for the adventure,” Amanda told Steve and Sharon. “And for not arresting me.”

“Thanks for the intel,” Sharon replied.

Steve stood and for a heartbeat Bucky wondered if they were about to make a scene in the diner. But he just stuck his hand out to shake Amanda’s hand. “I hope we see you around more often. Now that the awkward introductions are out of the way.”

It was said gruffly but sincerely and Bucky saw a faint line of surprise and confusion crease her brow before she took his hand. “I travel a great deal,” she told him. “But I make an effort to visit New York whenever possible.” Steve gave her a little nod and sat down again.

Bucky walked her out to the car waiting for her. “So,” she said once they were out of the building. “We had a meal out, external entertainment, and intimate contact last night. I believe that meets your qualifications for a date.”

It took him a moment to remember the conversation, then he couldn’t help but laugh. “Gotta admit. This is not how I pictured our first successful double date going.”

She laughed. “Well, we’re all a bit unconventional.” She looked up at him, hand on the door of the town car. “We will probably never be the the people sitting around the kitchen table chatting about our days.”

There was something hanging on the end of that sentence, so he prompted, “But?”

With a soft, oddly shy smile, she continued, “But I will try to spend more time in New York.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “And double date?”

“Maybe. I’ll take you all somewhere nice.”

It was something. An open hand. An attempt to be a part of his life, in whatever capacity she was capable of. It was something and he got the sense it cost her something, some sort of piece of mind. So he nodded and kissed her lightly. “Be safe. I’ll see you soon.”

She nodded and touched his cheek briefly before pulling the car door open and slipping inside.


	8. Homecoming

He didn’t see her for a month, though they spoke on the phone regularly. When autumn gave into winter Denise from the shop downstairs announced her retirement. She had one big sale around Thanksgiving, donated most of the rest of the books, then said her goodbyes. Apparently, she had a friend in Florida who had finally convinced her of the joys of a snow-free winter. The commercial space looked a lot bigger without the shelves and books.  
Amanda materialized for Thanksgiving dinner with a boxes of French pastries and Swiss chocolates. They introduced her to Sam, who took it in stride. Sharon was in charge of side dishes but happily let Amanda bake rolls once she found out she knew how. They talked shop while they cooked, in odd, round about code and managed not to fight or arrest each other.

She accurately predicted the outcome of all the football games, to Sam’s amusement and Steve’s horror. 

Bucky expected her to be gone in the morning but she scoffed at the idea of flying the day after Thanksgiving. They all spent a lazy day in the apartment. She didn’t pick up her phone once, though a couple rounds of jigsaw puzzles and board games proved her to be very hard to entertain the more mundane way.

“Are you going to get a new tenant for the first floor?” he asked as they were falling asleep that night.

Surprise was evident in her voice when she replied, “I rather thought you’d like to use it.”

December was an odd time to start a new business, but Steve reminded him the business wasn’t new, just getting a new home. They moved his finished products up to the store and he hustled to finish a few more. Sharon helped him get all the right paperwork together to formally incorporate his hobby into a proper business. The hardest part was thinking of a name for the store. Sharon was a big proponent of The Wicker Soldier, which, admittedly, made him laugh but no one else was going to get. He settled on the relatively boring Brooklyn Custom Furniture. He thought it looked quite nice written on the door.

He was lucky he didn’t need the business to survive, because he didn’t really know what he was doing, running one. He sold a couple of chairs and a coffee table, took an order for a loft bed for a little girl and her mom from the neighborhood. He learned how to upholster and took work fixing and updating some thrift store finds. But it wasn’t a living and was barely as more than he’d made working the flea market.

Slowly, he figured it all out. Advertisements and a website. He sent flyers out, held sales and hung some of Steve’s art on the wall to make the showroom more attractive. By April his business had doubled from December and was still growing. It still wasn’t a completely living wage, but with essentially no rent to pay, it was enough to contribute to the household. Steve was still making money with public appearances so they were living comfortably.

Amanda hadn’t visited in person since Christmas, though he talked to her almost every night. Sometimes she sounded distracted and sometimes they had to hang up before he would have liked. Part of him wondered if she was trying to pull away from him. He told himself that she was busy and giving him space. The furniture store was his baby and it was important to him that he do it on his own, without her pulling strings in the background. He knew she understood that and that it was probably hard for her to be hands off. But still, that little doubt niggled at him, especially at night when he couldn’t sleep, but couldn’t bring himself to call her.

In May, a very sweet lady from the Upper West Side bought an entire dining room set from him and told all her friends about his quaint little store. Over the next month he built accent tables, bedroom sets, and parlor chairs for most of her bridge club. 

At the end of June, while he was neck deep in orders and seriously considering hiring someone to help on the sales floor, the latest in a long line of women in heels, pearls, and perfectly styled grey hair came in. He smiled and greeted her, as he always did, and left her alone for a few minutes to do her circle of the sample floor.

“Who did your art?” she asked when she got back to his general vicinity.

The question was so unexpected it took him a moment to process and answer properly. “Uh, my roommate paints them.”

“Is he showing anywhere?” she asked studying an oil landscape of their neighborhood. “I run a gallery in Manhattan and I wanted to find some newcomers for a show later this summer.”

“No,” Bucky said immediately. “He hasn’t been shown anywhere but here.” Sharon had been lightly pestering Steve about taking a portfolio around to some galleries and Bucky had been quietly adding to the nagging. But this was as good as a sign from above. “He’s upstairs, you want me to get him?”

She looked over and smiled in a way that reminded him, oddly, of Amanda. “Please.”

Which is how Steve and a well dressed gallery manager took over his office negotiation terms for Steve’s first show. When they emerged a couple hours later, the gallery lady - whose name, he found out later, was Joan - looked quite pleased with herself. Steve just kind of looked shellshocked.

The show was in seven weeks and Joan had asked for ten paintings. Sharon, Sam, and Bucky helped him go through the finished and half finished ones in the apartment and store and managed to get six Steve thought were good enough. Getting the last four done took up the month of July. 

Amanda reappeared for the fourth, distant and distracted as she had been on the phone. With Steve busy and Sam making noise about moving in with his boyfriend, Bucky has the sensation of his world slipping through his fingers. He thought about asking her about it, reminding her she’d promised to spend more time in New York with him. But when they were alone, with no one else watching, he noticed she looked tired and drained and. . . worried about something. So he bit back his frustration and held her, and for a few moments she was anything but distant or distracted.

When it was time for her to leave, he walked her out to her car and asked her when he’d see her again.

She paused before answering, with a head tilt that made him think she was choosing her words and not her answer. “I will see you at Steve’s gallery show,” she said finally. “But I may need to meet you there. I have other business earlier in the day.”

The gallery show was over a month away and he was already dreading it. A night spent rubbing elbows with strangers far out of his class was not his idea of a good time. He hadn’t mentioned that to Steve, of course. He needed their support, so Bucky was going, hell or high water. But knowing his _vrach_ would be there did made him feel a little easier. “Did you have anything to do with him getting the show?”

She grinned, looking more herself than she had before. “I pushed that first well heeled Manhattan socialite in your general direction,” she admitted. “But the rest of it was all you and Steve.”

It was about what he’d expected. “Well, thanks for the nudge.” He glanced back at the building. His little store and the apartments above. “This is not a life I ever would have pictured. But it’s a good one.” He wanted her to know that, even if she was pulling away from him. If their lives kept veering in different directions, then goodbye was almost inevitable. And he was sure he wouldn’t recognize it when it came. So he’d spend their time telling her what she meant to him.

When he looked back at her she was smiling, but sadly. As if she’d heard the beginning of goodbye in his tone. “I’m glad.”

He touched her cheek, running a finger along the scar. “I’ll see you next month.”

She nodded. “Promise. Cross my heart,” she added, gesturing over her chest with a finger.

He kissed her then and it felt oddly final. But she’d never lied to him. So he was going to trust her promise one more time.

*

The gallery was smaller than Bucky had been picturing. Maybe because between his anxiety and Steve’s nerves this whole thing had blown up to earth shattering proportions in his mind. In reality it was barely bigger than their apartment, split up into three little rooms. One had Steve’s work and the other two were filled with other two other new artists. Bucky hadn’t ventured into the other rooms yet, Steve’s was overwhelming as it was.

He and Sharon had parked themselves at Steve’s sides as he smiled and shook hands and greeted the long line of people Joan brought by for him to meet. They were about an hour in and two of the paintings had sold - for sums of money that would keep them in groceries and electric bills for the rest of they year - and Joan was predicting the rest would be go before the cocktails stopped going around.

“I shouldn’t have done the Central Park one,” Steve said. “It’s cliched.”

Bucky and Sharon exchanged a glance behind his back. They’d gotten to know each other better over the last month, with Steve locked away in his studio. They’d always gotten along more or less. But having someone to share Steve minding duties was nice. Now he pointed at her, indicating it was turn to reassure the sensitive artist.

“I like the Central Park painting,” Sharon said, with just the right amount of brightness in her tone. “I always see paintings of it empty. Painting it with people gave it a hectic feeling.”

“Felt like the city,” Bucky offered.

Sharon gestured to him. “Exactly.”

Steve looked mollified, if unconvinced. Bucky and Sharon exchanged a fist bump behind his back. Only three more hours to go.

Then Steve muttered, “Shit,” under his breath and all of Bucky’s senses went on alert.

He followed Steve’s gaze to the dark haired man who was very clearly making his way towards them. Bucky had only ever seen him in pictures and TV. And, honestly, his first thoughts was that Tony Stark was shorter than he’d expected.

“Calm down,” Sharon said. “He comes in peace.” There was an unspoken “I hope” at the end of that Bucky decided not to comment on.

Steve turned to look at her. “How do you know?”

Something like guilt flitted over her features. “I told him about the show. I don’t think he’d come just to cause trouble.”

The look on Steve’s face indicated they were going to have a loud conversation about this later, but Stark had all but reached them so Steve slapped on his old USO smile to greet him. “Tony, this is a surprise, it’s good to see-“

“You can cut the chit chat, Rogers, this is awkward as hell and we both know it.”

His words, oddly, seemed to relax Steve. “Yeah. But it is good to see you.” He swallowed and added, “Thanks for coming.”

Stark shrugged, glancing around. “Well, you know. I’m an art lover. Looking for some pieces to put up at the new hospital.”

“I heard about that,” Steve said, with only the faintest quirk of his mouth to indicate he’d done more than hear. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” That sounded stiff, but sincere. “It’s just the start. Don’t tell the press, but we’re looking into branching into bio-medical research by the end of the year.”

Sharon’s brows went up. “That’s new. Pepper’s idea?”

Stark shook his head. “No, though she’s on board. I have a very persuasive silent partner.” He turned and squinted at the crowd, then waved a hand. “Doc! Over here.”

Bucky heard the click of heels on the gallery’s marble floor and his entire being went on alert. He knew those footsteps anywhere.

Amanda appeared in the crowd, stepping to Stark’s side. She was in a snug black cocktail dress and her heels. The eye patch was gone and a fake eye of some sort sat between her lids, a shade greener than her real eye. Her scarred cheek had been camouflaged by make up and other than a slight raised area and a droop of her lower eye lid, it was unnoticeable. The diamonds in her ears and around her neck were far more eye catching.

Stark introduced her with a gesture. “Doctor Newbury, meet the man of the hour, Steve Rogers, and his entourage. This is Amanda Newbury, the new head of Stark Bio-Chemical.”

For a moment the three of them just stared. Steve’s mouth was actually open a little. Bucky knew there were words he would normally say in this situation but for the life of him he couldn’t bring them to mind.

Then Sharon, with her decade of spy training, stuck out her hand, grinning, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Newbury. I’m Sharon Carter.”

Closing her hand around Sharon’s, Amanda smiled back, “The pleasure is mine.”

Steve obediently shook her hand when she held it out to him. “Thank you for coming.”

“Your work is lovely,” she replied, with none of her artifice. “There’s an odd melancholy to some of the pieces. I didn’t know you could capture nostalgia with oil and canvas, but you’ve done it.”

“I - thank you.” He cleared his throat. “What are you a doctor of, art history?”

She grinned and even Stark chuckled a little. “I was a medical doctor, but had to retire. I’ve been out of practice for a while, but I’ll be overseeing pharmaceutical research for Stark.”

“She’s the brains, I’m the money.” She turned and looked at him and Stark amended, “She’s a little bit of the money, too.”

“And you’re a bit of the brains,” she offered, making him smirk.

Sharon asked Stark something about Pepper and then he started teasing Steve about commissioning “fluffy bunny pictures” for the hospital. Bucky was able to meet Amanda’s gaze and gesture to one of the other rooms.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, _Soldat_ ,” she said when they were away from the others.

“Do you blame me?” He studied her, the new glass eye and the hidden scars. “What are you doing here? What are you doing with Stark?”

“Exactly what he said. I’m running his biochemical division.” Uncertainty crossed her features briefly. “You wanted me to do good. I’m. . . trying.”

For the second time in less than ten minutes he was speechless, breathless. “You’re not arranging things anymore? Taking jobs?”

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve retired, for lack of a better word. I intend to keep an ear to the ground, in case something comes along that might hurt someone that matters to me. But I’m not taking jobs anymore. I think working for Stark will be a full time job, more or less.” She offered him a little smile. “No more flitting around the world. I’ll be working out of Stark Tower.”

He had to resist the urge to pinch himself. “And we can go on dates and do everyday things? Like get pizza or watch baseball.”

“Yes,” she said, but her nose crinkled a little. “Though I’m probably still going to spoil the ending for you. And drag you to the theater on occasion.”

“That’s fine.” His smile threatened to split his face wide open. “I can’t believe -“ He shook his head, not sure how to phrase it.

She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. “I figured if you could carve a life and family out of what was done to you, then I owed it to you to try as well.”

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“I don’t make any promises. I’m going to get bored and frustrated at how slow the world moves. And I’m probably going to dabble in the stock market to a degree that will make Sharon nervous. But. . . I’m going to try. I want to try.”

He caught her hand and kissed her palm. “That’s all any of us are doing.” It had taken him a long time to figure out that no one really knew what they were doing, any more than he did. “It’s all anyone can do.”

She nodded, still looking uncertain. Then one or the other of them moved and they were kissing, tucked in a dark corner of a New York gallery.

“Do you think Steve will notice if we sneak out?” she whispered when they parted.

“Probably,” he replied, resting his forehead on hers and breathing in her scent. “But you can come join the pep talk squad as we wait for the night to end.

Her mouth quirked into a little smile. “Sounds like fun.”

So he took her hand and together they walked back into the crowd.


End file.
